Stuck Inside
by RubyBelle
Summary: Celia's stuck inside her PSP and it would probably be not so uncool if she knew what was happening.
1. What's Going On

_hello, everyone, i seem to be back. and with a multi-chapter story this time? eh idk either but yeah i hope you enjoy and go ahead and review if you feel like it uwu i'd be much obliged_

* * *

I'm leaning down to tie my goddamn shoe when it happens. There's a sudden jolt, a loud noise, the lights flicker off, and then screeching. Everyone in the subway car lurches to side as we halt to a stop and when the emergency lights turn on, the beginning of panicked murmurs start to rise. I quickly snap back up and hold my backpack tightly to me, keeping an eye out for any crazy people who might come running through on fire, or something.

The intercom crackles and we hear a sheepish, "Please hold on, ladies and gentlemen, the train seems to have lost power. Nothing is damaged, but for your own safety please remain where you are. We have technicians coming now."

Alright, well, great.

The old man on the left of me is unperturbed but the little kid on the right is starting to hyperventilate. I look over at him and grimace. Oh, god, little kids. Okay, he's not _that_ young, but he's still totally under twelve, and that's where my knowledge stops. But if he faints, I swear to god.

I lean over to him, which makes him pause for a second. "Yo, you alright?"

He bites his lips, looking nervous and ashamed. "Y-yeah, I'm okay, I just…" He looks down into his lap and waits. "I'm just scared of the dark."

I nod my head wisely, open up my backpack, and start digging around while still talking to him. Where the fuck is this kid's mom? "No need to be scared. I've got just the thing."

He looks at me warily until I pull out my secret weapon—a PSP. His face lights up like a goddamn Christmas tree and I smile in success.

"Woah, a PSP?" He practically falls into my lap with probably a mixture of excitement and wanting to forget the scariness of what's happening right now. "What games do you have?"

I pause for a moment, having to actually remember, then almost facepalm at my forgetfulness. "Persona 3. You heard of it?"

His blank face answers my question, and I chuckle as I turn on the console. "It's a really cool game," I tell him, watching the start-up screen flash. "It's like a fighting game and an RPG in one."

As I click the UMD and listen to the disk whirr, my mind starts wandering. Persona 3, yeahhh. That was one hell of a cool game. I used to play the :FES version in high school (I actually met some good friends because they were cosplaying some characters), and I just kinda stopped until I saw that there was a portable version that you could—gasp—play as a girl in! I dunno, I kinda just bought it instantly and played it a lot and nonstop. Until, y'know the very end. For some reason, every time it got to Ryoji and having to agree to letting the world be destroyed unless I could grind up 30 levels in a month, I just lost my nerve and stopped playing. Every now and again, I would replay it, but I could just never finish.

I click the new game button, and then I hear the clanging of the train moving again. I look up and around, suddenly nauseous, wondering why the lights haven't turned on if the train is moving, but…

No one was in the car anymore.

I jerked my head to the side, looking for the kid, but he wasn't there anymore, and neither was the old guy on the other side of me. But that train noise… It was getting louder?

I dropped my PSP and my head hit the window with a loud thud, unable to move anymore because of the ache in my stomach. Wow, oh my god, this fucking hurt, wow, wow, wow. My vision blurred and I closed my eyes, trying to make the room stop spinning.

_Time never waits._

_It delivers all equally to the same end._

Okay, who the fuck is this. I opened my mouth to say something, but a sharp stabbing pain hit me in the ribs and I fall over, hitting the seat beside me, whimpering and cringing.

_You, who wish to safeguard the future, however limited it may be…_

_You will be given one year._

Oh god, oh god, this sounds…

Familiar.

_Go forth without falter, with your heart as your guide…_

Oh god, what is happening.

There's the sound of an intercom crackling again, and I hear the conductor's voice ringing out, surprisingly clear for all the pain in my head and body.

"Due to a malfunction in the switching system, today's rail schedule has been greatly altered. We apologize to any customers who were in a hurry. The next stop is Iwatodai..."

I feel something soft on my cheek and my head is spinning. What… is happening? Did they just say 'Iwatodai'? Okay, I could be wrong, but that's…

That's the station in Persona 3, right. Right.

I finally yank my eyes open and the subway train is filled with light, but empty. The train is indeed moving, and I push myself up off the bench, looking around really carefully. My bag is still here, and I'm wearing the same clothes, and I'm still whole? That sharp, sudden pain was nothing?

While I'm patting down on my body to check for any knife wounds, there's an announcement, and I freeze again.

"Iwatodai. This is the final train bound for Tatsumi Port Island. Please take care to board before our departure."

Okay, fuck this.

I grab my bag and stomp out into the station. My watch is off, I know it, because if I was really in the game, it'd be midnight, and my watch is still reading the 6:43 PM that I was living in before that weird shit happened. I angrily walk around the station for a little while and then pause. I have no idea where I'm going.

I embarrassingly sit down at a bench and open up my backpack, looking to see if maybe whatever made me enter the game was kind enough to give me a map to the dorms that I apparently have to go to. Lo and behold, there is, folded up neatly in the front pocket, and I flip it open, wondering if everything is actually in English, or if my head got rewired for Japanese.

All of a sudden, the air gets thick, and I feel a sudden weight press down on me. It felt kinda like when you hold your breath for a really long time and your chest starts to feel like it's caving in. But I wasn't holding my breath, which made it even scarier. Looking around did nothing, but the atmosphere is so creepy that I quickly walk out of the station, on the verge of sprinting.

Looking at the moon takes my breath away.

It's _huge_… Like, much, much larger than it should be. Like, scary big. I don't even know how to describe it. It looks like the size of a truck, taking up most of the sky, and my head is wondering wildly why the oceans aren't freaking out because of the gravitational pull, or whatever. I wheeze for a little while, scared to see if there are any coffins anywhere, scared to confirm my theory.

I rush down the path highlighted on my map, aching to get to the dorms quick. If I really am in the game, I want out now. Maybe I could bargain with Pharos to escape.

* * *

When I arrive, I'm sadly disappointed. Not in the building—it's actually nice-sized. I'm just so fucking disappointed and angry because DAMMIT, COFFINS. There were six on the way, and there's actually one leaning against the brick wall of the dorm. I guess I really don't have a choice. I guess I'm in the game.

I look up at the dorm, towering over me, all four stories, and I read the oddly legible sign next to the door, proudly proclaiming the words _Gekkoukan High School, Iwatodai dorm_. This game is set in Japan, so why is everything in English? I decide that's probably the least of my worries, so I walk into the dorm.

Pharos is there, smiling at me all mysteriously in the darkness, and he simply says, "Welcome."

I'm stuck between wanting to start crying and begging him for a way back home, and wanting to play dumb and watch it all play out. This translates to me staying as motionless as possible.

"You're late. I've been waiting a long time."

His pale hand holds out a piece of paper, that damn contract. It's not even imposing. It's just kind of a blank sheet of paper, with some words typed out onto it. I dunno, I thought it would be a scroll or something a little bit more cool? I just keep staring at him, pursing my lips.

"If you want to proceed, then please sign here. It's a contract. There's no need to be scared," he grins. Yeah, that doesn't sound scary. His wide eyes are unmoving, and his lips barely move as he says, "It only binds you to accepting full responsibility for your actions."

I finally find my tongue, and blurt out, "I know, but—"

Pharos shuts me up by lifting his hand to push the contract into my face. "Won't you read it?"

I already know the words, but I read them anyway, that nauseous feelings creeping back in again.

_I chooseth this fate of mine own free will._

I push the contract down gently and look back at him, wary. "If I sign this…?"

"You will be able to proceed."

"What does that mean?"

He gives me a smile as a response.

Lost, I give in and rip the contract out of his hand. There's a space for me to sign my name, so I do so, my messy and shaky handwriting scratching in Celia for the first name spot, and then pausing for the last name. Okay, if I put my actual last name people might look at me funny because I'm in what I'm assuming is Japan with a western last name, so I, on a hunch, scribble in the commonly accepted last name for the main character in Persona 3, Arisato.

Pharos takes back the contract, still smiling like the enigma he is, and nods. "Well done."

We stand awkwardly for a moment—well, I'm the only awkward one, I dunno if Pharos even knows what awkward is—and he waits a long moment before speaking again, startling me.

"Time is something no one can escape. It delivers us all to the same end. Wishing," he starts to sound a little sad, something I never noticed playing the game, "won't make it go away.

"And so it begins…"

He steps back, quiet, and disappears into the darkness when I blink. Damn, that's creepy! In the video game, his sprite just kinda faded away, but seeing it done in real life is really unnerving.

Before I can gather my thoughts, I hear a shrill voice yell out from the darkness, "Who's there?!"

'Sup, Yukari.

I sigh, knowing my fate is currently irreversible and making really heavy eye contact with Yukari as she scans me, holding a gun in her shaky hands. But, yeah, it's not a gun, it's really an Evoker, but I'm not supposed to know that yet. I'm not supposed to know a lot of things yet. Oops. If I'm gonna be stuck here for a while, it'll probably be better for me if I learn to hold things in. Can't accidently be spoiling characters for major plot points, huh. The idea of doing so makes me a little queasy—along with the knowledge that I could if I wanted to. Damn, that's freaky. Imagine someone coming up and telling you that you were gonna die in eight minutes and you just blew them off and then YOU DID. I would shit my pants.

Yukari's still talking, but she seems more aghast than anything. "How can you be… But, it's…!"

She drops her gun arm, as if she just realized she was pointing it at me, and she just squints. "Don't tell me…"

And then Mitsuru, in all her beauty, barges in, and she hastily touches Yukari's shoulders, making her jump. She says nothing, but instead watches me as the lights flicker back on and the air suddenly feels lighter.

I stay still, wondering if I should take a seat and demand explanations and drinks, but Mitsuru speaks first, her voice calming and apologetic. Hearing it in person is so very different from hearing it out of the shitty PSP speakers.

"I didn't think you'd arrive so late. My name is Mitsuru Kirijo, one of the students who lives in this dorm," She smiles a little bit, the motion not touching her eyes, which, by the way, have not left my face. I'm starting to feel self-conscious with all this attention.

Yukari eyes me, but she speaks to Mitsuru. "Who is she?"

I feel like waving and being all, hello, I'm right here, hello, nice to meet you, but Mitsuru finally tears her eyes away from me (I know, I'm so gorgeous) and addresses Yukari. "She's a transfer student. It was a last minute decision to assign her here. She'll eventually be moved to a room in the normal dorms, don't worry."

As an afterthought, she looks at me and, with a little laugh, "Sorry, what was your name again?"

Oh, am I finally getting asked something? I open my mouth, and nothing comes out, and it's only the second try when my voice actually starts working. "Celia Arisato," I say, remembering my new last name. "Pleased to meet you."

Yukari ignores me and stares at Mitsuru, pleading with her eyes. Mitsuru sighs.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be fine… Anyway," she says, smiling again. Oh, you are ever the fabulous businesswoman, Mitsuru. "This is Yukari Takeba. She'll be a junior this spring, just like you."

The teenage girl in mention does a little awkward bow with a little awkward smile.

I rub the back of my neck, feeling awkward again. "So… Where's my room? I-I mean, no rush, but I'm kind of exhausted, and, uh…" I trail off, pointing to Yukari's Evoker, still in her hand. She flushes a bright red and hides it behind her back, as if she were trying to hide the fact it ever existed at all. Don't worry Yukari, I'm sure I just made it all up, there never was a gun, yeah, sure.

Mitsuru plays damage control. "It's for self-defence purposes. Don't worry, it's not a real gun... Anyway, it _is_ getting rather late. You'll find your room on the third floor, and your things should already be up there." She smiles again, and I start to get unnerved. It's not like I thought Mitsuru was always going to be a frigid bitch and brush off everything I say and just be curt and to the point, but she's smiling way too much for a situation like this. I tried to smile back, but my cheeks failed, and I think I just ended up showing her my teeth. "I suggest you tuck in for the night."

"I'll—I'll show you the way," Yukari offers, keeping her gun-Evoker behind her back. "Follow me."

I nod and do just that, chuckling quietly to myself when she rapidly switches hands so that her Evoker-gun would stay hidden from me. Yukari, you're not fooling anyone, alright? Well, maybe if I was dumb or a coffin, you may have been able to get away with it, but most people would be able to notice when someone was holding a gun up to them, and they would also keep an eye on it the entire time. I don't think it even shoots bullets, or if it even works during not-Dark-Hour-time, but still, man. That's a hard piece of metal right there, and if I piss Yukari off enough, she might just beat me with it. Speaking of which, she hears my snicker and shoots me a death glare, which I promptly sulk to.

As we climb up the stairs (damn this place needs an elevator), I look around, studying all the little details. I can barely remember what the dorm looks like in the PS2 game, where it was all rendered and not just kinda flat, but it certainly wasn't as rich and full as it is now. I take a deep breath and can smell the wood of this place, which is both nostalgic of forgotten childhood places and a little bit scary. Old, wooden buildings in a time where giant angry shadows attack the land? I cringe, thinking of the battle that will soon happen on the roof.

We reach the last door at the end of the hall, and Yukari turns around, switching her guvoker hand again. "This is it! Pretty easy to remember, huh? Since it's at the end of the hall."

She shifts from foot to foot and asks, "So, any questions?"

Yeah, HOW THE FUCK DID I GET HERE. But I doubt she'd know the answer, so I just shrug. "Nah, not really."

Yukari bites her lower lip, a really cute thing her sprites never showed, wow, and looks away from me for a moment. I inch towards the door, wanting to go inside and just plomp down on the bed, but she looks back up and really quietly says, "Can I ask you something?"

I nod dumbly, and she continues. "On your way here from the station… Was everything okay?"

No, I was transported into a handheld game console, and the moon was weirdly big, and people were coffins, and I met a devil child, and you pointed a gun at me? But, no, yeah, everything was cool. I decide to play dumb. "Yeah? Should something have been off?'

Yukari shakes her head a little bit too fast, and says a little bit too loud, "No! I-It's nothing. Never mind," She looks at my door before she continues speaking, as if making eye contact or face contact or any contact with me was too awkward. Gosh, sorry, Yukari, _gosh_. Alright, yeah, I know, it must be weird for her, but it's weird for me, too? I still kinda just want to run downstairs and tell Mitsuru the jig is up and she better find a way for me to return home, but for some reason my body just feels really fucking heavy, and I'd much rather collapse on a bed.

"Uh, I'm sure you still have other questions, Celia, but… Let's save them for later, alright?" She finally turns to look at me and I somehow manage a weak smile. "Good night."

She walks down the hall, and I expect her to stop a few doors down, but she just keeps walking and heads down the stairs. I'm still way too tired to even remotely care, so I open the door with the key still in it, throw my bag onto the desk, and collapse into the bed before I can even inspect my so-called bags. I wasn't expecting to be here, so how did my bags get here? I don't even… know…

Everything goes black and as my breathing slows, I find myself remembering the little kid who was sitting next to me. I hope he isn't scared.


	2. GEKKOUKAN HIGH SCHOOL

I'm jolted awake by a loud knocking on the door and I roll over, which makes me fall off the bed, which makes Yukari nervously creak the door open. I had dreamt of nothing, and it almost felt like I hadn't slept at all, so I didn't have one of those cliché "was it all a dream?" moment. Although, it would be pretty radical if it _was_ actually just a dream and I got to wake up, but, I don't even know what's going on right now, so I just grin weakly at Yukari.

"Uh, I guess you're awake now… Um, Mitsuru-senpai asked me to take you to school," She pauses, assessing the situation. "Do you need a minute to get ready?"

I nodded, pushing myself off the ground, my joints aching. Aw, fuck, I slept in my jeans and everything. Yukari closes the door and I look around the room, wondering where my uniform for GEKKOUKAN HIGH SCHOOL would be.

Due to my sleepiness the night before, I hadn't looked around the room, but I was doing so now, and dang, there are a lot of boxes. None of them have my handwriting on them, and I don't recognize any of them, and what is IN them? I start reading the scribbled descriptions on the side, looking for something like "clothes" or "school stuff" or "wear this dumb junk on your first day" or something else that I would be able to recognize. I find a box with the first descriptor, and rip it open, starting to realize just how long I was taking. Inside was the school uniform, just as I remembered it, and as I held it up to myself, I realized it actually fit.

I started changing, feeling completely unsure with the skirt length (why skirts whyyyy), and also kind of unsure on how to button up the front of the blazer. It wasn't really a blazer? It was weird and had latches on it, but from the side, and I was confused. Yukari did a little knock on the door, like a warning, and I quickly grabbed my bag from the desk—wow I am so unprepared for this first day I hope I'm not expected to do too much—and open the door, sheepish.

"Are you rea—oh!"

I bared my teeth again, unsure of how to smile. "How do you do the front of this?"

Yukari was obviously stifling giggles, and I flushed in embarrassment, but she showed me anyway. Hey, what do you want from me? I haven't had to wear a uniform in almost six years. Especially not a weird one like this. I fidgeted for a while, wondering if I would have the time—or money—to buy more things to complete the outfit, like actual socks (I'm without socks right now, and my shoes aren't even those cool leather loafers, they're canvas shoes) and maybe bicycle shorts to wear under the skirt.

After she finished with my jacket, she grinned, obviously in a better mood from last night, and pointed to the stairs with her thumb. "Let's go?"

I shuffled after her as we headed down the stairs and out the front door, making sure to sign out on that little roll-call sheet at the front desk. She explained to me that we were basically free to do whatever we wanted as long as we signed in and out whenever we passed the front desk. Although, after a moment's thought, she laughed a little and said that I might not have to worry about that if I'm going to be moving out soon.

The station is close by, closer than I expected, and we stand in silence, surrounded by both students and businesspeople, all of them joining us on our exciting morning adventure. I still feel strangely tired, my joints heavy and head throbbing, but manage to not just collapse on the floor and sleep. When the train comes, _bling-blong_ing its arrival, almost everyone in the station files on, and I have to scramble to not get too far away from Yukari. Getting lost in a video game on my first day of school would suck so hard.

We're pressed side-by-side, holding onto some poles, and Yukari decides to break the awkward (word of the year right here, ladies and gentlemen) silence between us. "We have to take the monorail to get to school, since there's pretty much no way to get there via walking. Bet your last school wasn't like this, huh?"

Actually, my school was across town and took half an hour by car on a freeway to get to, but I just laugh and nod my head.

Just as Yukari starts to speak again, train curves a little and we're surrounded by water. I twist a little to look out the windows behind me, awed by all the sparkling, outreaching blue. Yukari giggles and says, "This is my favourite part, too. It feels like we're gliding over the sea, doesn't it?"

I just dumbly nod my head. "I've been on more subways than monorails, so this is really cool for me," I admit, now looking at the huge landmass ahead of us. That must be the school… But it can't be _just_ the school, can it? Like, woah, it's HUGE. There's got to be more buildings there than just the high school because that is not a high school, that is a small city.

"Our stop is Port Island Station at the end of the line," Yukari informs me, moving a little to get out of the way from a few sweaty businessmen. It's too early in the morning for there to be this many people, yeesh. I never really grabbed subways during busy hours, so this is still really all new to me. "From there, we walk."

This is boring, so I'll skip over it. We got to the station, and we walked. There was some small talk made, like how the weather was nice, and some stuff on hoping we got good teachers and good classmates, but there wasn't anything spectacular or interesting. I'd forgotten most of what we said by the time we reached the school, and I had to pause when we did.

Jesus fucking Christ, why is everything so goddamn _huge_.

A student walks past us and shares a morning greeting with Yukari as I'm standing there, slack-jawed. No wonder this stupid school turns into Tartarus, it's got to be the largest building in this stupid city. It's not really tall—more like three stories, our dorm is taller, but it's _massive_. The building spreads out so far and has such a large opening field that I can't even see the end of everything.

Yukari is having a field day with my stupidity. "Here we are! Gekkoukan High! I'm sure you'll love it!"

If I don't get lost on my first day, sure.

* * *

Inside is just as grandiose, and I'm literally forcing myself to focus on doing natural things, like breathing and not falling over when I walk, while Yukari helps me find my shoe locker. By the way, shoe locker? I'd heard about them and read about them in shoujo mangas, but never before have I had to remove my shoes and replace them specifically for a building. The shoes inside fit perfect, which makes me a little worried and I start wondering if whoever or whatever had dragged me into this place took my measurements first or whatever.

"You're okay from here, right?" Yukari asks when I waddle over to her after taking care of my shoes-thing. I nod. "You should see your homeroom teacher before anything else, though. The Faculty Office is over there," she raises a hand and points down a hall to my left. "And that'll conclude my tour! Do you have any questions before I go?"

I wish this actually was a video game and I could have a selection, but I rub the back of my neck again, awkward again. "Uh, yeah, how do I find out what class I'm in?"

She turns and points behind her, to some large bulletin boards with many different posters and things pinned up. "They'll be posted there, though I haven't checked yet either. I'm sure you could ask your teacher, too."

I turn to go off to the Faculty Office, but Yukari stops me with a tentative hand on my forearm. The contact startles me, and we look at each other before she mutters, "Hey…"

She lets go quickly and looks around. That annoyed feeling hits again and I feel like scowling and telling her that no one knows me enough to kick her out the club for talking to me yet so she could chill with the guard, but I don't. "You won't tell anyone… About last night, will you?"

I shake my head, adding an "of course not" to the movement to help reassure her, and Yukari smiles in relief. She then just walks off, without a goodbye or anything, and I try not to let it hurt or annoy me any. I shuffle off down to the Faculty Office, focusing on the weird feeling of the indoor shoes. They're, like, fitting? But they almost feel like they're not there. The sole is soft and the strap isn't tight, so it just kinda feels like slippers, which is more disconcerting than shoes inside, if you ask me.

Inside the Faculty Office, I awkwardly (someone should start counting how many times I use this word) look around, wondering who my homeroom teacher is until a pretty lady stands up and calls me over with a simple hand wave.

She sits back down as I approach her, standing with my hands held behind my back, eyeing her desk ravenously—this is all so _interesting_—and pulls out a manila file from underneath a small stack. "You're the new student, right? 11th grade, yes?"

I nod and watch her as she flips through the papers inside the file. Since she's facing me, I can't actually see what's inside, but I sure am interested to see what that weird force that pulled me in here said about me. Will it say my real name, or that fake one I gave Pharos? What does it say about my history—I know the main character's got a pretty intense one with parental death, but one of my parents is still alive and well, so I don't know what the file will say about me. Actually, if it says my parents are alive, I wonder what excuse it'll give for me living in the dorms. Agh, so many questions.

"Wow, you've lived in a lot of different places…" the teacher mumbles, and I decide to give them that. I _have_ moved around a lot. "Let's see, in 1999… That was ten years ago, right? Him, your parents—"

She looks up at me with sad and scared eyes, and I look back at her calmly. I guess they chose the my-parents-are-dead route.

"I'm sorry… I've been so busy, I didn't have time to read this beforehand," she tells me, as if I even cared about her apology. I guess it's better she do this now and have me know what to expect and how to act than have her read it before and have me accidentally spill all the scary details like, I don't know, you all are video game characters and how the hell did I get here. "I'm Ms Toriumi. I teach Composition. Welcome to our school, Celia Arisato."

I smile and bow a little, saying a "nice to meet you" in response, trying to be mindful of Japanese culture before I start waving my hands around and spitting in people's faces. Not that I would, but.

So, my fake last name, eh? We meet again. So, whoever/whatever put me here had a hand with Pharos, since he's the only person who could influence anything that I know knows my last name so far. When do I meet with Igor in the Velvet Room, again? He might have more answers for me.

Ms Toriumi chuckles. "There's no need to be so polite, Arisato-san!" Wait, how the hell did that honorific slip in there, aren't they supposed to be speaking English to me, not Weeaboolish. (No offense meant. I am a huge weeaboo. Sob.) "Well, have you seen the classroom assignments yet? You're in 2-F, my class."

She stands up, setting my file back down onto her table. Some other teachers are leaving the room, and as I watch what I guess is going to be my Japanese History teacher—oh god his _hat_—she tells me, "But first, we have to go to the auditorium. The Welcoming Ceremony will be starting soon."

I follow her out the room and through the school at her behest, still trying to look forward lest I get awed by the sheer size of the school again. My last school had 600 students, what do you want from me.

* * *

During the ceremony, there were some whispers about me being a transfer student and being in Ms Toriumi's class and something about Yukari, but I was spending all of my effort trying not to fall asleep and snore to pay any actually attention. I was leaning on my hand, careful to not touch the students around me, and my eyes were wavering, not being able to focus on the snooze-fest up on stage. Wow, this principal is boring. My principal. Our principal. Uhg, I really am stuck here, aren't I.

After the ceremony closes and all the classes start heading back to their rooms, Yukari finds me in line and just walks behind me after a little whisper of, "We're in the same homeroom, huh?" I bob my head at her, and she laughs at my existence before fading back into the line and joining I guess her friends. I don't know anyone else, and some people start to look at me funny, so I keep my head down and follow the feet in front of me up the stairs into a classroom down a hall on the second story.

Once we're all seated, Ms Toriumi informs us all that we have a new student, and I hold in a groan as I walk up to the board. I thought I wouldn't have to do this since it didn't happen in the game, and it's the beginning of a new year, but she wants to make me cry, I guess.

There's a terrible moment as I wonder wildly if I should write my name in English when Ms Toriumi decides to just write it up there instead, and I stand and mumble out a really horrible self-introduction. My name, my age, and, uh, I like instant foods. The class has a collective laugh and I sulk back to my desk.

Our ever so wonderful teacher tells us all not to get too comfortable since we'll be changing seats soon (groan), but today will be a short day, so she won't get too deep into the material (cheer). The material is apparently just a list of books we'll be referencing during the school year, and the entire thing is just so monotonous that I feel comfortable. Glad to see school is boring in every dimension.

When the bell rings out the end of the school day, I lean back in my chair, moaning. This guy seems to find it either attractive or a call for help and he saunters over to me, grinning.

"So, wassup, dude?" he grins, taking the seat in front of me. I lean forward to look at his face and almost start laughing when I recognize him as Junpei. His voice isn't as Vic Mignogna-y as it is in the game, a bit deeper and rougher, but it is still Junpei. He laughs at me, making me scowl. "You look like a deer in headlights, man."

"And just who are you?" I ask, leaning on my hand again. Junpei isn't really my favourite character, but that's just 'cos he gets so damn whiny. But, right now, he's not really doing anything, so I'll let him slide.

He leans back, pressing both hands on his chest in fake shock. "Me? Why, I'm Junpei Iori. Nice to meet ya," He leans forward again, crossing his arms on my desk and says, "Your self-introduction was pretty hilarious. Good goin'."

I shrug. "What else do people expect me to say?" I eye him again, finding it a bit odd that he's real and not an anime character, and also he should really shave off that scruff. "Did you need me for something?"

"Nah, I just… Well, I transferred here when I was in 8th grade, so I know how tough it is to be a new kid, 'specially when everyone already knows each other," he shrugs again. "I thought I'd check up on you, make sure you weren't freaking out on your first day."

Before I could come back with a retort, Yukari's hovering beside us, putting her hands on her hips and sighing very loudly. I have to laugh at her obvious sense of distaste in Junpei's life choices. "At it again, Junpei? Honestly, is there any girl you wouldn't hit on? Haven't you ever thought you might be bothering someone?"

"Oh, ouch, am I not special?" I whine, making a wounded face, but Junpei talks over me.

"Whaaaaaaat? But, I was just bein' friendly," He also makes a wounded face, and he turns to me. "I was playing nice, right?"

I nod. "He was playing nice."

Yukari sighs again, and pulls a chair up to sit next to us. "If you say so, Celia," It's a little weird hearing her say my name, since they never had the voices say the main character's name in the game, since it would probably be impossible for all the voice actors to pronounce every name in the history of ever. "Well, it's still pretty cool that we got the same homeroom. Now I can help you if you have any more questions!"

Junpei looks extremely hurt that we seemed to have cut him out of our conversation, and he practically lays down on the desk, whining as I start laughing at Yukari scrunching her face up in disgust. "Hey, I'm still here y'know? C'mon, lemme in on the funnnn!"

I lightly karate chop his head and he comes back up, still whimpering like a baby. "Besides, you guys know each other out of school, right? The entire class has been buzzing about a couple of cuties like you two coming to school, walking side by side."

Even though I know he means nothing by it, I still blush when he calls me a cutie. Yukari on the other hand, groans loudly. "Could you cut that out? I hate dealing with rumours like that. Besides, even if I'm used to it, she just got here, you know? You should feel bad, spreading rumours."

As I idly wonder the propagation of rumours on what would seem to be Yukari's sexuality, she stands up, moving her chair back to where it came from. "Well, I've gotta go take care of archery team stuff," She pauses, and points a menacing finger at Junpei. He leans back, staring at it carefully, like it was going to turn into a knife and stab him. "Don't you try anything funny, alright?"

She turns on her heel and walks out in a huff, and Junpei starts speaking, still watching the door until after she's gone, as if she might run back in and drop-kick him. Dang, Yukari seems violent. "What, is she your nanny or something?" He glances at me, then turns his body to face me, going back to grinning and joyfulness again. "Well, just to clear things up, I really didn't come over to hit on you or anything. I just wanted to let you know, if you've ever got a problem, you can feel free to tell your ole pal Junpei about it!"

I laugh derisively, leaning back in my seat and folding my arms. Alright, Junpei, I've got one hell of a problem—HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE. "Sure, I'll be sure to remember that."


	3. Oh, How Punny

(AN: tell me how i'm doing? i'm having fun writing this, but yknow itd be cool if you guys liked it too pfft) (also, sorry for the wait, life got kinda busy)

* * *

Because I'm dumb and don't know how to say no, Junpei corralled me into allowing him to give me his company as we walk to the station. I think I mentioned this before, but he's not really my favourite character. In fact, he's the guy who I never really liked having in my team, so he was always under levelled by, like, twenty points. But, y'know, in real life, he's not too bad a guy. He's pretty amiable.

As I was at the shoe lockers, fumbling with my lock, Junpei popped up behind me and asked if I could be so kind as to allow him to escort me back to the stations. I think I said something along the lines of "I don't need your help", but he probably didn't get the hint and decided to just chatter away as I swapped shoes.

Outside, the sun was bright and hot, and we paused to let a team of joggers cross our path. He whistled low, watching them as they made their rounds. "Dang, clubs already?"

"Do they always start so early in the year?" I asked. At my school, extra-curricular clubs could start and stop whenever, but sports clubs were always really regulated in their sign-up periods. Never at the beginning of the year, though, dang.

"Not really," Junpei says as we continue on our way. "Normally it's in the second week of school when they start meeting up, but I guess our track club senpai are really dedicated."

There's another honorific. I'm so confused by everything. Maybe when I meet Igor, I can ask him questions about the mechanics of… this. This game-world thing.

We're paused again, at a stop light. Junpei looks at me, searching. I make an ugly face and he looks away, laughing. "You interested in joining a club, Celia-tan? You'd have to wait for a few weeks before they let you sign up, since you'd be a newbie and all."

"I'm not athletic," I admit as we begin walking again. I mean, I've played a shitload of sports, but I'm just not a naturally athletic person. I'm also not really competitive, which makes playing sports absolute torture. "And I don't like competitions. I'd be a horrible team member."

Junpei scratches his ball cap, scrunching up his face in thought. "I'm sure there's some team you could join that doesn't compete. Or maybe just forgo the sports and join one of the art-type clubs?"

I stare at him until he stares back at me, then look away. "Nice to see you think I'd be an art-type."

"Wait, so you aren't?"

"No, I am, but I don't see what makes you think that."

Junpei laughs and I elbow him in the ribs.

We walk in a comfortable silence for a while, crossing a few blocks until we reach the station. Junpei follows me even after I try to keep him from crossing the ticket machine, reassuring me that he really _is_ going the same way, just a couple of stops down. I don't really know how much I trust him on that, but after he points out there really isn't any other way off the island, I decide to stop subtly trying to trip him.

He tells me a little about the island and monorail as we wait for the train to roar into the station, little delicate bells announcing its arrival, and, luckily, it's not too crowded, so we get some seats.

"So, you're living in a dorm, huh?" he asks me after a while. I groan openly, expecting this question. "Hey, don't be like that! I've just never lived in a dorm, so I wanna know what it's like."

"It's like living at home," I lie. "But with a lot of people you aren't related to."

"That's a very creepy way of putting it," he tells me, making a sad face.

"I don't know what you want me to tell you?" I admit, shuffling my bag to hold it in-between my arms. "I haven't been there that long, so I can't really give you a good estimation of life in a dormitory. I'm sure you can fill in a lot of the blanks."

The announcement comes on, warning us of our next stop, my stop, and I stand. The ride seemed much longer in the morning, but that may have been because of all the icky businessmen crowding around us.

I look back at Junpei, who has a positively perverted look on his face. I kick his shin and he flinches, and when he bends down to nurse it, he demands, "Hey, what was that for?"

"We don't spend all our time rubbing each other's boobs in the bath, you idiot," I scowl. I'm actually not very angry, just really used to his kind. But I don't know how to be nice to people, so my first instinct is to insult everyone. "I mean, we might, but that's only if you admit guys compare dick sizes."

He opens his mouth to object, then gets quiet again. The train stops and I motion slowly towards the door, not wanting to just turn my back on him and leave. When he opens his mouth again to respond, I stick my tongue out at him and head off. Oh god, do guys actually do that?

* * *

When I got back to the dorms, Yukari was already there, seated in the lounge area with some guy, and it took me a moment to recognize his hair as the chairman guy, Iku-something. Ikutsuki, I think. Yukari stood up at my arrival, saying something along the lines of, "oh, she's here" and I had to wonder how on earth she got back to the dorms before me as I signed in. Was she lying when she said she had archery club stuff? I mean, me and Junpei didn't take _that _long coming back. She could've just said she had stuff to do at the dorms and I wouldn't have jumped up to rush along with her. Oh well.

Ikutsuki stays seated as I follow Yukari back to the couch and sit next to her, smiling pleasantly all the while. "So, this is our new guest! Good evening," he starts, reaching a hand out. I shake it very weakly, embarrassed by all the attention today. "My name is Shuji Ikutsuki. I'm the Chairman of the Board for your school." He leans back, looking away from us, almost as if he were musing. The forced lips, though, make it obvious he's faking. I wonder just how much he fakes. " 'Ikutsuki'… Hard to say, isn't it? That's why I don't like introducing myself. Even I get tongue-tied sometimes."

Bullshit you do, old man, but I laugh a little as Yukari rolls her eyes.

He leans forward again, entwining his fingers as he rests his elbows on his knees. "Anyway, I apologize for the confusion regarding your accommodations. However, it may take a while longer before you receive your proper room assignment. Is there anything you'd like to ask of me?"

Only the same thing I'd like to ask of everyone. I shake my head. "Not really, no."

Apparently satisfied with my answer, he grins widely and stands up. Yukari and I stand up as well, I guess from politeness. "Then, I hope you'll have a successful school year. But, if you'll excuse me, I really have to be get going. You must be tired from all the excitement, though. You should go to bed early tonight."

I notice Yukari looking at me from my peripheral vision as if in warning, but I don't prepare myself quick enough for his pun. "As they say, 'the early bird catches the bookwork'!"

There's an audible groan from my soul, and Ikutsuki laughs. "Ah, please forgive the bad pun!"

Yukari mumbles in my ear, "You'll get used to his lame jokes,"

When I look at her, she adds, "Or die trying."

* * *

Yukari very lovingly introduces me to the rest of the third floor, since we hadn't had any time last night. And by very lovingly, I mean not lovingly at all. She's really very obviously uncomfortable around me, and I have to tell her twice I won't ask a thing about her gun before she decides to calm down some.

Turns out, the floor that we see in the game isn't the entire floor. There's the restrooms that I'm pretty sure are included, but there's also another side past the stairs where the bathroom is. It's a big room, all tiled, with a large bath in the back and little shower spigots along the side. It's not really spectacular, though, but there are little lockers in the front where Yukari tells me she and Mitsuru keep their shower stuff at. Not that they actually use the locks, she admits, but she doesn't expect any of us to take anyone else's stuff. I know I wouldn't take their stuff—Mitsuru would probably flay me and Yukari isn't my scent type.

Anyway, the bathrooms also have bags of their stuff lines up on the sinks, and it's with a red face that Yukari admits that maybe they've been a little lenient with keeping track of their stuff.

I shrug. "What's the problem? It sounds like a good idea—having our stuff in the bathroom so we're not always running back and forth for dumb stuff."

She joins my gesture, eyes glancing over the toothbrushes, face wash, cosmetics, and many other morning-routine things gathered along the mirror. "We try to keep things clean… I don't know," she sighs. "It's just been me and Mitsuru-senpai in the girl's hall for such a long time, I guess I forgot basic etiquette."

"Must be even messier in the boy's bathroom," I laugh. "Akihiko-senpai being by himself, right?"

The "-senpai" doesn't sound forced at all, and since Yukari just joins in with my laughter, I guess I've got this honorific thing down.

* * *

I go to my room after, to start unpacking some of the boxes, but I lose my patience trying to rip the tape without scissors, and I just decide to stab open my toiletries box with a pen I borrowed from someone at school (oops) before skulking off to the restrooms to brush my teeth.

The bathroom is intimidating, so I decide to hold off showering for another night, until I get the general grasp of bathrooms in Japan—that sounded dumb. Alright, well, it's not a whole bunch of isolated showers, but just one big room? And I don't have it in me to shower with the chance of Mitsuru and her perfect body bursting in and making my self-esteem wither up and die. Don't look at me like that.

After brushing my teeth, washing my face, and changing my clothes, I collapse into bed, still so very tired. The sun is barely setting, but I wrap myself up in the unfamiliar blankets and allow myself to drift off.

Before what feels like too long, there's a really quiet whisper in my ear, really soft and enclosing, like a blanket being laid over me, like hiding in a closet, and I can barely make out what it's saying. The voice is wavering, trembling, it sounds so _scared_, I want to just reach out and hold it close, make it safe. My breathing is still so slow, so low that my head feels like it's running out of air to think properly. Is it the Dark Hour right now…? Everything just feels so heavy…

"Master…"

I start, pitching forward, and when I'm aware enough to study my whereabouts, I realize everything is blue, deep, dark blue. With a really heavy heart, I look up and make eye contact with the terrifying black eyes of the owner of the Velvet Room.

"Welcome to the Velvet Room. My name is Igor, and I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

"How did I get here," I begin, very heated and very angry. "Did _you_ bring me here? Why? What benefit do you get from me living and existing here?"

Igor is very calm, and that fucking creepy smile never leaves his face. "Why, dear Celia… This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. Only those who have signed the contract can enter this place."

I see the contract on the table in-between us, but I ignore it in favour of standing up and stepping forward, pissed off.

"Don't fuck with me!" I snarl. "You know what I mean! I don't give a shit about the Velvet Room, I want to know how I got here! How did I fucking get sucked into this—this—this _game_!"

He picks up the contract and studies it as he speaks to me. "I know not of which you speak. I am only a person who lives to serve their honoured guests. Whether or not your perception of reality is skewed is not a matter of which I am concerned of."

Oh. My god. I am going to punch this smarmy little bastard, I really will. "Don't fuck with me," I repeat, unsure of how to continue. "You and Pharos are the only people who could know the name I wrote down on that contract, so it has to be one of you who brought me here, and I _know_ you two must be working together, so what _the fuck did you do_?!"

My throat is ragged from the shriek my words turned into, and Igor is entirely nonplussed. "You were the only one suitable for the job, my dear Celia."

"Don't fucking call me your dear _anything_, shitface."

"You are destined to hone your unique ability, and you will," he says, stressing my dependency in this horrible situation, finally looking back at me with his beady little eyes. "require my help to do so. I only ask one thing in return."

"What, that I don't snap and kill Pharos in the middle of the night?" I laugh, feeling myself losing the argument and absolutely unable to do anything about it. "Or that I don't kill myself and release Nyx upon the world? What do you want, Igor."

"For you to abide by your contract, and assume responsibility for your choices."

I fell back into the sofa behind me, feeling weak tears well up. Oh, god, am I really stuck here forever? Until the game ends? When is that, in almost a year? What's happening to my body in real life? Do I just not exist anymore, or is time passing? Am I ever going to see my family again, my friends, anyone who I've ever cared about? Is there really no way back, no way out?

Before I can stop myself, I'm crying, actually sobbing, and I hate everything. I'm sitting in a fucking blue room in this weird dimension in a video game, in my pajamas, with this creepy fucking guy refusing to help me, and I don't know what to do.

Igor says nothing, staying completely silent until my breathing slows and I look up at him, angry and embarrassed. I know he's waiting for my response, so I croak out in a broken voice, "I understand."

He smiles, sending shivers down my back, and then reaches across the table and gives me a key. I take it, feeling its surprisingly heavy weight in my palm, and study the insignia, an ornate VR carved into the head. When I look back up, the contract is gone and his face is impassive, completely unreadable past his fucking creepy and eerie smile. "I see you've calmed down."

"Fuck you," I sigh, leaning back into the sofa once again.

"Well now, would you like to hear the rules of our little game?"

I stare at him, unsure of how to feel or what to project. "Rules?"

"Well, of course, my dear. Certainly, you wouldn't expect to live in a world so different from yours without a couple of rules to follow, would you?"

I… I, uh… What?

He can obviously tell I'm confused and shocked and just every synonym for those words you can image, and he spares a cackle at my expense. I lean forward again, my hand tightening around the key in my hand, and with deep breaths I ask, "What rules?"

He whips his hand up, holding up only his index finger and starts rattling off the rules I apparently have to follow in this world. "One: you shall not inform anyone of their future, regardless of how pressing or irresistible it may seem. Two: you shall not tell anyone the truth of your past. Three: there are certain things written in fate to occur, and you shall not change or attempt to change any of these events."

All these 'shall not's make my head ache, but I keep nodding, determined to ask questions once he gave me the signal.

"And, finally, rule four: there are no restarts."

Okay, I had kinda expected the last one, but the certainty in which he says it makes goosebumps run down my arms.

"So, about these rules, why—"

With another fucking enigmatic smile, somehow different from his usual one, somehow similar to Pharos, he cuts me off with a _tut-tut-tut_ting and I can feel the air getting heavier again. My head starts to thud, really thick and hollow, my vision starts to blur, and I can hear Igor's voice telling me we'll meet again. My head begins to bob, and before I can stop myself or say anything else, my head hits the sofa and everything is black once more.

* * *

When I open my eyes again, it's morning time and I punch my pillow before crying again.


	4. Dang, Man

_(sorry for the wait, this one was hard to bang out and yknow LIFE and SCHOOL and junk. thank you for everyone leaving reviews though!)_

* * *

I'm in a daze all morning, too busy thinking to focus on doing simple things like, oh, I don't know, not walk into doors. I'm clumsy. Yukari sees me checking out the red bump on my forehead in the restroom and laughs nervously.

"You're awake already, Celia?" she asks, turning on the faucet. I grumble in response, putting toothpaste on my dental cleaning device. We don't say anything else to each other for the rest of the morning, except for as we're leaving, when she checks to make sure I have everything and I've signed out. What a mom.

Fast-forwarding through the day again. It's outstandingly boring. I don't really know what to tell you. It's high school—droning teachers and snoring classmates. Junpei did get called on in class while he was dozing off though, which was fun to watch. He didn't, however, ask me what the answer was, unlike in the games, which I'm pretty okay with, because I wasn't really paying all that much attention either.

My classmates seem somewhat interested in me, but I guess I'm scary because no one comes up to me to make any sort of conversation. Maybe in a few months, after I've got a few Shadow bosses under my belt and my charm points are higher up.

After school, Junpei meets up with me again at the shoe lockers and he swiftly dodges my shin kick. I pout as he laughs and leans against the lockers, watching me as I absolutely fail at unlocking this thing.

"Need help with that?" he asks politely. I shoo him off with a growl.

"No, I can do it, I'm just… Agh!" I near punch the locker and step back. All I'm supposed to do is turn, turn, turn, click, but why the fuck isn't it clicking?! I swear to god, I am going to cut this lock off and throw it onto the monorail tracks, I really will. "I'm just really fucking bad at this."

Junpei leans over and starts undoing it himself, and I begrudgingly mumble the numbers to unlock it. He gets it done on his first try and I throw my hands up in defeat.

He laughs at my misery, leaning back again, getting out of the way so I could change shoes. "It takes practice. Didn't you have shoe lockers at your last school?"

"Well, yeah," I lie very blatantly. "But we could put our own locks on, and they weren't these pieces of metallic shit."

We make small talk on the way to the station again, the entire thing extremely similar to yesterday. We spoke of school, I made fun of his inability to answer things in class, he tells me he doesn't give a pole-vaulting crap about that class, we laugh, I kick him a couple of times, sitcom laughs tracks, good times, good times.

…I'm sorry, I know this is boring, but there's really just not much to say. In the video game, boring days could go by really quick, but actually living through it gives me a whole new respect for the characters. I could spend three minutes on the daily routine and spend four hours in Tartarus, but now I have to go through 16 hours of daily routine before I can even think of Tartarus. Actually, I can't even think of it now. I shouldn't even know what it is.

Walking back alone from the station to the dorm allows my mind to wander, and I find myself thinking about Igor and the Velvet Room. That little hooked-nose, beady-eyed, rat bastard. I will personally buy a thesaurus to come up with new insults for that fucker.

And, what were those rules? First off, why do I even need rules? Before even that, why the fuck am I here? Will I ever get a chance to go back home? The way he spoke made it sound like I had to finish the game the whole way through, which sounds absolutely tedious and horrible. I don't know if I'll be able to live through everything as impassively as I handle it playing the game. I mean, just look at Junpei. I don't like the kid! But, I guess I do, since Yukari avoids me and there is absolutely no one else talking to me. I've seen Mitsuru maybe twice? I don't even want to think about what's going to happen when I meet Shinjiro Aragaki, that hobo.

Back to the rules. What were they? Don't warn anyone of their future, don't tell anyone about your past, don't try to change major events, and no restarts. I guess they're all pretty self-explanatory. Warning someone of their future may be changing major events, and I'm not supposed to know any of this anyway. Man, that sucks. It'd be cool to pretend to be a fortune teller and warn them of dumb stuff, like when the school festival gets cancelled. But, yeah, that'd break rule 1.

Don't tell anyone about my past, though? Do I really have to be so tied to this fictional plotline that I have to throw away my own sense of self? It's not fictional anymore, though, I guess… I mean, I'm breathing, eating, sleeping, everything in this world. I don't really know if I can call it fictional now. If it _is_, anyway, god knows what I'm classified as.

But, yeah, still, I have to keep everything secret. That blows. How much of my life has to be kept under wraps? Otherwise, they'll ask something harmless about me and I'll just have to feign amnesia. That's dumb. In the game, they never really asked much, and everyone else seemed to know more than the player ever did, but in the game Junpei didn't help me unlock my shoe lockers. I guess I shouldn't take the game as close a guide as I've been doing so until now…

Thinking about that is giving me chills. Uhg, I can practically map out my future because I've played this dumb game. Isn't that slightly worse than spoiling other people?

Well, probably not, but we're all the main characters in our own stories, so I figure spoiling myself should be worse.

* * *

I get to the dorm without realizing it, and the sign-in sheet says no one else is home yet, so I take this opportunity to run upstairs and take a bath.

It takes me three tries before the water is just right and I don't know if I want to take a full-on bath, so I just used the hand-held shower heads. I won't go into more detail, but I didn't soak in a bath like my head had planned. (My head had planned many things, and none of them have really come to fruition.) I was a little curious about why there was such a community-style bathroom in a modern Japan, since I figured everything had been westernised, but I guess maybe because it's a dorm-style living and dorms are communal and…? Yeah, I don't really know either, but I'm not about to ask Yukari and get weird looks.

When I get back to my room, the dorm is still silent, but that doesn't mean I'm entirely alone, so I decide to start unpacking in silence. I lose patience quickly again, but this time a box of clothes has been opened. I don't know if I should be using this adjective anymore for anything, but they're all _surprisingly_ my own clothes. Like, I remember a lot of these from my closet back from the real world.

Real world. This _is_ the real world now, I have to get that through my thick skull.

Anyway, the sight of familiar clothes is comforting, and I put some into my dresser drawers until I get too sleepy—what is wrong with me lately, I just keep going to sleep early—and then I lay down in bed and drift off.

* * *

Very boring day over, and another one started. The dorm came supplied with an alarm clock, so I set that for early in the morning to hopefully wake myself early enough to do homework that, yes, I was already assigned and, yes, I was totally ignoring.

It was mostly grammar work, which I ended up deciding not to do, because 1) I hate grammar work and 2) why am I doing English grammar work when I'm supposed to be Japan. This is such a weird language I'm having to use. The worksheet says Japanese, and the class itself is Japanese, but all the questions are in English with all of the participle pronouns and adverbs and, man, I don't really know. I should try speaking Japanese to someone and see if they think I'm speaking English.

Translations, man. How do they work.

When I've had enough of the homework, I get dressed and walk over to Yukari's room as I remember it from the game. She was right next door to me, right? Or down the hall? As long as I don't hit Mitsuru I'm sure I'll be fine.

She's awake, and is just starting to get ready when I knock, and we agree to leave together again, like what seems to be our new norm. When she comes down the stairs, I'm lounging on the oddly comfortable couches, and she signs out as I struggle to get myself to go to school again.

"Does Mitsuru-senpai always leave before us?" I ask while we're walking, still feeling the foreign sound in my mouth. It's not like I use Japanese honorifics in everyday speech, so this is gonna get some taking used to.

Yukari ponders over it a bit as we wait for a kid on a bicycle to cross us. "Well, not always. Sometimes we leave at the same time, but she's usually pretty keen on arriving at school early, so it's not like I walk with her. She's the Student Council President, did you know that?"

"Have they had the elections already?" I asked, absolutely certain that I wasn't supposed to have missed that yet. She has her speech after Junpei joins us, right? Or is my sense of time off because I'm actually sitting through full school days?

"No," Yukari admits. "Not yet, but she was the President last year and, well, why wouldn't she be?"

"Yeah, she seems like the kind," I say, not knowing that she had been President last year. Was that ever stated in the game? Which makes me wonder, is any of this actually real? Like, no, not that I'm in denial, but are all of these things happening because I remember it, or because they're supposed to happen? If I'm in a world caught in-between dreams and reality, then maybe my head is filling in all the blanks. Or maybe this actually all _did_ happen.

In my daze, I trip into a mailbox and Yukari laughs at me.

* * *

Y'know what, I'm not even gonna mention school anymore. You know what it's like, I know what it's like, I'll keep you posted if anything interesting or cool happens. My teacher was a bit peeved that I didn't do my homework though, although it was more of a class-wide annoyance. Seems like I'm in the Slacker Class.

Junpei, for some reason, doesn't show up at the shoe lockers after class, and instead I run into the pink sweater of my dormmate. I hadn't seen her here before, so I'm a little taken aback and I wonder if it's actually her when I go up and get her attention.

She jumps when I touch her shoulder, and I frantically apologize as she tries to slow her heart. "No, it's fine Celia, really, I was just so busy thinking, I didn't…"

"I'm sorry," I say again, my mouth and brain feeling dumb. "I just never see you here, so I thought I'd come over and say hi."

"I normally have Archery practice," she says, closing her locker. "So I normally stay behind for a while. But since today's a Thursday, we don't have practice. Besides, I need to go to the mall and pick up some supplies."

"I know that mall," I say, wracking my head for the name. "Pawlonia? Powlonia?"

"Paulownia," Yukari corrects me. "Oh, that's right, you _are_ new here! Do you wanna come with? I can show you around some of the shops—it's pretty much _the_ place to get practically anything here. Well, there's a strip mall near the station, but it's more food and trinkets than, like, actual stuff."

"I can get some socks," I say sadly, looking down at my bare shins. A teacher had actually stopped me that day to ask me why I was out of uniform, but when I told him I was new, he gave me a week to become proper. Whatever that means.

"We can get you socks," she agrees, patting me on the back. "We can also get you more notebooks so you're not using one for all your classes."

We're walking now, heading out of school and into the scary world beyond our safe school gates. "I like my notebook, but, yeah, I do need more. How did you even know that? Are you watching me during class? Yukari, I'm sorry, but I don't return your feelings."

"That's—! Uhg, no, I'm not watching you! You're just new and all, so I get worried, and…"

"It's okay, I won't judge."

She groans and rolls her eyes.

* * *

Junpei is notably more fun to play with, but Yukari isn't that bad of a tour guide. The mall is way fucking bigger than it seems in the game, but I'm sure you've already picked up on the disparity between game size and real life size. It's an actual mall! With department stores, a food court, and little shops everywhere! Yukari keeps blabbering on and on about some of the unique stores in here, passing over the brand-name ones, but there are a few "recognizable" ones that I have never before seen in my life.

We get to a little clearing with a fountain in the middle, and I instantly recognize it as the only part of the mall we saw in the game. The familiarity gets my shoulders to relax some and Yukari notices, wrongly assuming it was from the little café tucked away in the corner.

"Yeah, it's pretty amazing that a mall this size has such a quaint little café, right?" We wander a little closer, scoping out the menus taped to the glass windows. "It's a favourite of the girls at Gekkoukan, and it _is_ pretty good. They have this great drink that's supposed to, like, have pheromones or something? It's got these natural things in it that makes you really pretty to guys."

"Pheromones," I confirm, but then I laugh. "That is such a weird concept. What am I, an animal in heat?"

We laugh for a bit and she shows me around to the arcade, warns me to stay away from the nightclub, gets interested in the idea of working at the spa as a part-time job until she groans about club duties, and then we walk out of the area to find a place to buy socks.

I try my best to ignore the dim blue light glowing from the end of an emergency exit hallway.

* * *

With the help of Yukari's fashion sense and memory of our school rules, we manage to pick up a few pairs of socks so I don't have to walk around school awkwardly and improperly. Highlight of my life. When it came time to pay I suddenly remembered that things cost money and holy shit do I have any money with me? The wallet in my bag says yes, although I do have to leave behind a pair due to lack of full funds. We leave without buying any school supplies because of said problem, and Yukari assures me she can come again another day. I still spend about half an hour apologizing.

(In case you were wondering, yes, it was yen, only leading to my utter confusion in what sort of halfway American-Japanese world I was stuck in. When I see Igor again, I'm gonna ask him how money is gonna work out for me. I guess I should take that part-time job at the spa.)

Anyway, that little fiasco over, we take the train back to the dorm, Yukari telling me some stories of our classmates, as a way of introduction, I guess. I tell her some vague stories of my past, since I'm not sure how much I can safely release, but I'm sure some generic middle school stories should be enough to fill in any suspicious gaps.

When we're back at the dorm, we sign in and then head to our separate rooms to do whatever we need to do, I guess. I decide to change clothes, take out my homework, and promptly fall asleep.

* * *

I'm sadly jerked out of my dreamless sleep with some loud slamming and muffled yells, and by the time I stumble out of bed, my blood runs cold. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, it's tonight isn't it? The night that the huge Shadow attacks the dorm? I rummage through my drawers and pull on a jacket before opening my door and quietly running down the hall. When I reach the stairs, the yelling gets louder, and I have to steady myself before jumping down the steps, multiple ones at a time.

Oh god, I don't know if I'm prepared for this yet—I'm not very athletic? I mean, yeah, I'm luckier than a lot of people because I can at least run for a little while, but I'm not very strong or anything, so if I have to take this down alone with only that weird staff thing, we're all fucked.

I finally reach the lounge, and everyone turns to stare at me. My heart is pounding really fucking loud, and before I can ask dumbly what's going on, Mitsuru takes charge.

"This isn't a time to joke around, Akihiko! Takeba—take Arisato somewhere safe!"

I see Akihiko behind her, cradling his ribs with his hand and—wow wow wow. One, he's really fucking hot, and two, he does not look very good. In the game, his sprites weren't anything different, but he's actually all… beat up. He's scruffed up and his clothes are dirty and torn, and he's got a swollen cheek with this gash on his forehead that seems to have been patched up with a ripped piece of cloth from his sleeve.

I feel an even deeper chill when I realize that people actually get injured by Shadows—that _I'm_ going to get injured.

The humungous coward in me wants to break down sobbing, but Yukari grabs my hand and keeps me steady with her own terrified look. Well, it doesn't really inspire courage in me, but the knowledge that I'm not the only person freaking out really does help.

"Mr. Chairman, please head for the common room! What are you doing, Takeba—run!"

"But, Mitsuru-senpai, what are you going to do!" Yukari pleads, squeezing my hand tightly.

She looks at us very coolly, speaking very calmly. "We're going to stop it here. Akihiko led it to us, so I'm afraid he'll have to help me fight."

Akihiko scoffs, his eyes rolling. "Oh yeah, like I had a choice?" When he realizes we're still standing here and absolutely fucking _petrified_ to move, he waves a hand and winces, shouting, "What are you waiting for? Go!"

We sprint off.

There's noises and banging behind us, but Yukari just grabs a broom and thrusts it into my hands. "I know it's not much but—use it to save yourself! We're going out the back door!"

"Wait, what the fuck is this supposed to do?" I yell at her when we resume running. Okay, I know it's probably really weird for her to just give me that staff-weapon-thing like in the game with no fuss, like, oh, here you go, we had some weapons lying around, you might want to use one, but, really, _a broom_? What is she expecting from me? For me to beat it to death with the wimpy plastic handle?

"I don't know, just—just keep running!"

The back door is too far away from the front area, but when we get there, Mitsuru's piercing voice cuts through the air and yells, "There's more than one enemy!"

I wheeze and Yukari's face drains of all colour. The door beside us bangs and she jumps in the air, actually screaming. I decide to just fuck it all, grab her hand, and run up the stairs.

I know, she's supposed to be the one leading me and telling me what to do, but she's very openly sobbing from fear and I know I want to just curl up and cry as well, but I'm not going to die here. I'm going to fucking play this game through and I am going to kick Nyx's ass and I will get back home at all costs.

First step, though, is beating the massive thing attacking our dorm.

"Is there access to the roof from the fourth floor?" I yell, panting from the burst of adrenaline and the flights of stairs.

"Y-yeah, there is! Do you think we'll be safe up there?"

Of course not, I want to say, but that wouldn't do any good, so I just keep running.

When we finally get up there, Yukari shakily locks the door with a set of keys she pulls out of her skirt—I just realized, everyone was still wearing their school uniforms, wow, I must look like a dork in my sleep clothes—and pretty much collapses against the door.

With a really unsteady and breathy voice, she moans, "I think we're safe for now."

I don't have it in me to tell her we're actually not, and I don't have to, because there's a giant thud and an ear-piercing shriek and I think I almost vomit.

"No way," Yukari sobs. "It climbed up the side."

My knees decide to stop functioning as I turn to look and… Fuck.

In the game, I know they were just these black blobs with dumb faces and arms, but… It's so much more than that. The black isn't just black, it's… It's nothing. It's the absence of colour and light, and it's the darkest black I've ever seen in my life. It's bubbling and moving and _alive_, and you can't look into it because it's just so… disgusting. I really don't know how to describe it. It's just really fucking disgusting and the realization that I have to fight it makes my gag reflex start working.

Yukari weakly raises a hand and points at it, turning her head away in what I'll assume is disgust or fear. "That's the thing… That's attacking us. We call them Shadows."

She very weakly leans forward and gets onto her hands and knees, very slowly getting up. "I… I have to fight it. I… I can do this… No…"

She hits the ground again. "Problem."

"Oh god, no, Yukari, please get up," I beg, my knees going weak again. "Please, you have to help me, please."

She didn't seem this weak in the game. She didn't seem this scared. But in the game, everything was a bit more detached, and I was ready to fight this villain, I wasn't almost about to puke. It's still crawling up, its grotesque hands coming closer to us, and Yukari struggles to get back onto her feet. Everything is so much more real, because it _is_ real, and I see her pull her Evoker out from her skirt's waistband.

She lifts the gun—because that's what it is, it's a fucking _gun_—with both her trembling hands to her forehead and takes a steady breath. I see her mumble something, probably to steady herself, and I grip the broom tighter, on the verge of tears again.

There's another loud thud as the giant Shadow finally pulls its entire body up onto the rooftop, which makes Yukari yelp and drop the gun.

I absolutely can't handle it anymore, so, before my body or survival instincts or common sense kicks in, I grab the gun, level it against my temple, and pull the trigger.

It's a very odd sensation. I hear a very loud crashing noise, like glass against tile, and this pressure forms in my head, right against the barrel of the gun and then falling into the read of my head, like dipping it into a pool of water. My eyes are still open, but they flutter shut for a moment with the pressure reaches the centre of my head, and then when I open them back up I see Orpheus in front of my, like my guardian angel.

Orpheus looks very soft and kind, her very presence calming, and she tells me very caringly, "Thou art I… And I art thou."

And then the pain actually kicks in.

I drop the gun, falling to my knees when the sudden stabs of pain hit me, striking behind my eyes in the fucking _worst_ cluster headache I've ever experienced. My ears are ringing, my head feels like it's going to blow out of my eyes, my teeth and sinuses feel like they're going to explode, and there's this faint screech in the distance, like a wounded animal, and it takes me a good while to realize it's mine. I curl up on the ground, sobbing, positively bawling, barely able to register the change in my Persona, only knowing it must be kicking the shit out of the Shadow from prior knowledge.

When the pain subsides, I hear Yukari calling my name, her hand on my shoulder, shaking me frantically. "Celia, oh, god, Celia, you have to get up, it's not all gone yet, Celia!"

I want to yell at her to do it herself, my body completely drained of energy, but I somehow push myself back up, tears and snot and drool still running down my face. I must be sight for Mitsuru and Akihiko up in the control room, but I just scrunch my face up and reach for the Evoker again.

The smaller Shadow isn't nearly as imposing, I fire another gunshot to my head with some command to Orpheus to "destroy that fucking thing", she blasts it with fire, and before Yukari can catch me, I'm on the ground again.

* * *

I wake up in the Velvet Room, with absolutely no aching, but I still groan like a little kid being woken up early. Igor is smiling with his fucking shit-eating grin and I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

"It's so nice to see you again," he says, and I decide to actually go ahead and stick my tongue out at him. "You became unconscious after awakening to your 'power'. I see it was Orpheus that heeded your calling."

"I fucking know what a Persona is, Igor," I snap, not really having an excuse for my snippiness. "It's a facet of my personality. What I want to know is why, when it changed, it hurt so goddamn much."

"When you have to call upon deep power, when you find yourself against a very strong enemy and you have to reach deep down inside yourself for unknown control over yourself… Well, of course it's a little painful."

A little, my ass, I want to say, but I just curl up onto the sofa and moan again. "Can I wake up soon? How long have I been out?"

Igor chuckles and I decide I fucking hate him. "Time marches on in your world, Celia, dear. I shouldn't keep you here much longer. From now on, whenever we meet shall be of your own accord."

I want to tell him I'm never coming back, but we both know that would be bullshit so I just close my eyes and listen to him as he bids me farewell.


	5. Let's Have The Talk

_(thank you to everyone leaving reviews! they really mean a lot, and i take them all to heart. and, without further ado, here's chapter 5!)_

* * *

When I came to, however cheesy it may sound, it felt like a weight was being lifted off of me. It was a slow awakening, like when you're left to your own devices on weekend and you wake up about three times until you finally decide to actually get up. It wasn't painful, like I thought it was going to be, just mostly warm.

I stretched out my legs until the joints in my knees and ankles popped and I rolled over, taking note of the IV attached to the crook of my elbow. There was a whole bunch of medical junk clipped onto me, which was frustrating and maybe a little nostalgic, and I wondered where the fuck Yukari was.

I'm not enough in a daze to be confused—coming back from the Velvet Room feels instantaneous, so, yeah, no, I know I'm stuck in Persona 3, I know I'm in a hospital, and I know Yukari is supposed to be in here to tell me her life story.

But alas, there is no such teenaged girl, so I keep looking around the room to maybe call a nurse. I can't remember how long you're supposed to have been out for, but it was definitely a while, so maybe the nurses and doctors would like to know I'm awake. Maybe.

Just as I'm reaching for the call button that's a little too damn far away from, the door creaks open and Yukari's precious face peeks in.

"Oh!" she starts, pushing the door open a little more. "You're awake!"

I wave. "Good morning."

She closes the door behind her as she walks in, and pulls up a chair to sit next to me. "Thank goodness, you finally came to… " There's a deep, relieved sigh and I start to feel flustered, amazed someone who's known me for such a short amount of time would care so much about me. She probably still doesn't give a shit—more worried about whether or not that new girl who kicked Shadow ass is okay since I would be quite the valuable asset to the SEES team. Or so they made it seem in the video game. I'm actually outstanding levels of useless.

I decide to break the silence. "So, I assume I'm in a hospital?"

"Oh, yeah! This is Tatsumi Memorial Hospital, it's really close to the station," she explained, fidgeting a little. "The doctor, um, said he couldn't find anything wrong with you. He said you were just exhausted and malnourished… He said you hadn't eaten anything in days, is that true?"

Oh, yeah, it is, isn't it. I smile guiltily at her, and she groans at my response. What? I just never did any searching for money until we were at the mall, I always fell to sleep too early on the other days, and I just never really felt hungry! I guess that means I was in starvation mode or something, when you refrain from eating so long you just kind of stop feeling hungry, but Yukari scolds me with all the expected words and I nod to let her know I'm paying attention.

After she calms down, she looks at her hands in her lap and we spend a moment in silence, listening to the clock tick and the heart monitor beep.

"I'm sorry," she starts, really soft. "I couldn't do anything. Your power…was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it before."

"What did I, exactly, um, do?" I ask, and even though I know exactly what happened and pretty much what she's gonna say next, I should probably not seem like I know too much about Persona at this point in time. "I just got a really bad headache, and…"

"Um, well," she says, shuffling forward in her seat and looking up to face me. "The power you used… We call it 'Persona'. And those creatures you defeated are Shadows—our enemy. Mitsuru-senpai will probably explain everything better later, and I'm really sorry I didn't tell you before." I tell her it's alright, but she still has that regretful face on. "I really am sorry. And, I, uh… I wanted to tell you… That I think we're sorta similar, you and me."

"What do you mean?" I ask, partially confused and partially bored.

"My dad died in an accident when I was little, and I'm not exactly on good terms with my mom. And you… you're all alone too, right?" Well, right now I am, and the thought apparently visibly darkens my face. Yukari stumbles, flustered. "I-I mean, I already know about your past, and it felt wrong for me to know so much and you not know anything…"

She takes a deep breath and goes back to not looking at me.

"It was back in '99. There was a big explosion in the area, near here, actually. Apparently, my dad died in the blast, but nobody really knows what happened. He was working in a lab run by the Kirijo Group, Mitsuru-senpai's family's business. I thought, if I stuck around long enough, I might be able to find out something, and… That's why I'm going to Gekkoukan High, and why I'm staying in the dorms, and why I was there when the attack happened and _this_ happened to you."

She groans, rubbing her forehead. I sit patiently, waiting for her to finish, words pressing against my lips, aching to be heard. "Of course, I panicked and was of no help. It was my first time fighting them, too, to be honest. I'm really sorry… This wouldn't have happened if I wasn't such a coward."

"I was really fucking scared, too," I say, both probably following the script and telling the truth. The only reason I managed to pull that trigger was because I knew I absolutely had to, and because I didn't give myself time to think over it.

"But you didn't seem like it," Yukari protests. "I couldn't do a thing. And then you collapsed… And I'm dumping all this on you as soon as you wake up. I'm sorry."

She wouldn't let me talk, but instead kept doing so herself. "As I've been waiting here… I thought to myself, I'm going to tell you the truth. I've been hiding too many things."

"Thank you for telling me," I say, sounding dumb again.

"No, thanks for listening," she says, looking sad and sounding sadder. "I've been waiting a while to tell someone all that. I'll, um, go tell the others you're awake."

She quickly gets up and leaves, and—wait, wasn't there supposed to be something else? Wait, what happens next? I look around the room awkwardly. In the game, I'm pretty sure it just went straight to the dorm, but I still have to get checked out and all of that hospital stuff. Goddammit, couldn't they have just let me lounge in my room? Do I need health insurance? Am I gonna be paying for this? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS? Pharos, help. Anyone but Igor, help.

I try to sit up and pop my back when the door opens again and I'm sure I look like a crazed animal when Yukari's face looks through my door. I smile, and the door opens wider, Mitsuru and Akihiko striding in.

My eyes widen and I get flustered again. This didn't happen in the game! Oh God, am I gonna get the Dark Hour Talk now. I need time to prepare myself for this—I am but a frail and fragile flower, as of yet unaware of the terrors the world has yet to show me.

"Good morning, Arisato," Mitsuru starts, her voice cool and calm. She's wearing what her sprite normally wears on their days off, that turtleneck and with leather jacket and pants and dang man she's hot. Akihiko stands next to her, his face still a little bit scuffed up, but he's not wearing his day-off sprite clothes. He's a bit more casual, since I'm 99% sure the sprite involves a blazer. "I'm glad to see you're awake."

"We haven't met yet, have we?" Akihiko grins and I blush. DAMN HE'S HOT why is everyone so hot. I'm internally screaming and crying when he holds out a hand and says, "I'm Akihiko Sanada. I'm a senior at Gekkoukan, like Mitsuru."

His hands are warm and calloused and I feel my teenage girl heart flutter. I stumble out a, "are you also okay?" and he chuckles. His voice is a bit deeper than the one in the game, but I think it's a given that their real voices are a different from the game voices.

"I'm fine. I just got a bit bruised, nothing as exciting or worrying as you passing out."

Mitsuru glares at him, her upper lip curling into a scowl. "Don't listen to him, Arisato. While he may be stable now, he has a hairline fracture on his ribs and is therefore forbidden to participate in any extraneous physical activities."

My first thought is sex, my second is Shadow fighting, it takes the third guess to make the correct words. "But what about his club?"

Yukari looks at me funny, probably wondering how I knew that, but Akihiko and Mitsuru aren't taken aback or anything. "He is banned from that, as well," Mitsuru says with an air of finality. Akihiko groans like a petulant child.

Before they get to bickering, Yukari interjects. "Um, Mitsuru-senpai! Will Celia be able to come back to the dorms tonight?"

Mitsuru nods, back to being a businesswoman. "We will have a doctor brought in to make sure her vitals are alright, and if she checks out, yes, she will be returning tonight."

"What about the fee?" I ask, unsure. "Don't we have to pay something?"

With a warm and familiar smile, Mitsuru tells me to not worry about it, and then before I can thank her or apologize, she shuffles Akihiko out of the room forcibly. Yukari turns back to me, the door still open, and shifts her weight from one leg to another, looking like she has something to say.

"Celia, you don't have to be formal around me or anything. We second-year girls gotta stick up for each other, after all."

I stop her before she leaves, asking, "Yukari, uh, how long have I been asleep?"

She pauses. "Huh? Oh, um, well, it's the 19th now, so… Nine days?"

"Well, fuck."

* * *

A doctor came in after that, asked me some questions, checked out my vitals, and told me I was alright to be discharged. I got a prescription for some weak pain pills in case anything suddenly started aching, and when I waddled over to the nurse's station after changing into some clothes that I'm pretty sure Yukari had brought over in a rush, the nurse just tells me it was all taken care of and I'm ready to go home.

I was half-expecting someone at the entrance to escort me home, but apparently me having been in a coma for nine days isn't a big deal, so I trudge off to the station in a bad and/or sad mood.

When I get back to the dorm, I realize no one is signed in, which makes me ferociously curious, but I'm really tuckered out, so after an extremely quick shower, I crawl up to my room and sleep some more.

* * *

I don't go to school the next day, despite it being a Monday. When I finally wake up, it's noon, and there's a note on the sign-out sheet from Mitsuru, telling me to rest up and eat something from the kitchen in the back of the lounge. I feel really dumb for having forgotten that place. In the game, it was more of a sometimes plot point—Shinji cooking stuff there, and Fuuka burning stuff there, but that's pretty much it. I never really thought it was a place people actually ATE AT, and when I check out the fridge and pantry, I realize there's actually quite a bit of food there. Most of it is ingredients—milk, vegetables, canned soup, not many finished meals, but there's a closed box of cereal without a name on it, so I take that back up to my room and decide to munch on it while finishing my unpacking.

By the time I'm finally fucking finished (I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER OWNING THIS MUCH STUFF), I've got a lot of clothes, a lot of books, a lot of school supplies, a whole lot of pillows and blankets, and one electronic. Really. My laptop, my cell phone, my PSP, my DS, everything must've been left in the real world. The other real world. The only thing Igor or Pharos or Nyx or whoever the fuck decided fit to let me keep is my iPod, wrapped up neatly with charger at the bottom of my box of pillows and stuffed animals.

That's a good thing, though, and I start listening to it as I start putting things away. The charger has the wall socket connection, so I don't need my laptop, but I'm gonna fucking miss the internet. I'm sure there must be a reason for it, but finding that out means asking Igor and fuck if I'm gonna do that.

When I walk back downstairs to put back the rest of the cereal, Yukari is standing there, signing it. Is it that late already? She notices me and skips over happily, much less awkward than yesterday.

"Hey! Are you feeling better?'

"Yeah," I say, sounding incredibly stupid. "I've been unpacking. And eating."

"That's good," she says, relieved. "When the doctor told us you were malnourished Mitsuru-senpai went out and bought a lot of food so you'd have something to eat. She said she felt guilty, since you probably didn't feel welcome enough to use the kitchen, and that you should feel comfortable. Although," she giggles. "Akihiko-senpai ate some of it. I'm glad you're feeling better."

Mitsuru having bought all the food would explain the notable lack in instant foods, although Akihiko's presence probably also had something to do with that. I'm really amazing she would do that, though. She _is_ a little naïve when it comes to teenage socialisation, and she's also pretty earnest, so that might be why she thought it must've been a lack of welcomeness that kept me from eating.

"I'm glad I'm feeling better, too," I say, smiling honestly.

Yukari tells me there'll be a meeting on the fourth floor in the evening when everyone's home, and after we spend some time talking over school and school work, we both head back upstairs to our respective rooms.

When it comes time for the meeting, Yukari comes and gets me, and I see her for the first time in lounge clothes. All the other times it's been school uniform or her sleep clothes, that one time I saw her early in the morning. She's not wearing what she wears in the game, but I guess that's a given. It'd be weird if she only had three sets of clothes. I've pulled my hair back into a ponytail by now, consciously trying to look a bit more like the FemC in the game, since I figure if I'm going to step into her position, I might as well do so all the way. Now to just become the cutest thing ever. Ha.

We climb up to the fourth floor, and when we get there, it's literally just a hallway with a big door at the end. Yukari knocks nervously, and when we hear the okay to enter, we open the door see Mitsuru, Akihiko, and the Chairman guy sitting on the sofas.

Ikutsuki or whatever stands up. "Ah, there you are. I certainly am glad you're okay, Arisato-san. I wasn't sure what I'd do if anything had happened to you. Please, sit, sit down."

Me and Yukari take adjacent seats on a sofa opposite Mitsuru and Akihiko, and the Chairman also sits down. I feel like making a joke about having to notify my next of kin of my demise, but I figure this might not be the appropriate time or venue for that kind of humour, so I stay quiet.

"The reason I asked you here is because I needed to talk to you. Let me start off by asking you this…" His voice has taken a turn for the serious, and even though I know what he's gonna say, I try to look intrigued. This faking it thing is really nerve-wracking, I have to say. I can't wait until there are no more spoilers, and I just seem pretty knowledgeable instead of pretty other-worldly.

"Would you believe me if I said that a day consists of more than twenty-four hours?"

I blinked and forced out a little laugh. "Um, what?"

Mitsuru shuffled a little, looking a bit uncomfortable. Akihiko by her side was by contrast really comfortable, leaning back in his seat and watching the entire situation impassively. The unexpected difference took me off guard. "Do you remember the night you came here, Arisato? You had to have noticed the signs. The streetlights went out, nothing was working…" She swallowed. "There were coffins everywhere. Didn't it feel like you were in a different time? That's the Dark Hour—a time period hidden between one day and the next."

"Wait, hidden?" I asked. This reminds me of a book I once read, thinking about it. "How did we not know about this before?"

The Chairman jumps back in now. "I guess it's more like something people aren't aware of. But, the Dark Hour _does_ exist. It occurs each night at midnight. It'll happen tonight, and every night to come."

I open my mouth to ask something, but Akihiko cuts me off, finally leaning forward in his seat, entwining his fingers. "Normal people don't realise it, since they're all sleeping inside their coffins. But, that's not what makes the Dark Hour so interesting." At that word Mitsuru shoots him a look of obvious distaste, but if he notices, he doesn't do a thing about it. "You saw those creatures. The Shadows. They only appear during the Dark Hour, and they'll attack anyone not in a coffin. Meaning us. It's our job to defeat them. Pretty exciting, huh?"

Mitsuru lightly thwacks him on the shoulder, scowling. He cradles his injury as she scolds him. "Akihiko! Why are you always like that? You _just_ got hurt the other day!"

Akihiko mutters something in defence, but the Chairman flies in to his rescue. "Now, now, he does his work well," He turns back to me, ignoring the Mitsuru-Akihiko thing going on and smiles. "Long story short, we're the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad—SEES for short. On paper, we're classified as a school club, but in reality, this group is dedicated to defeating the Shadows. Mitsuru is the leader, and I'm the club advisor."

School club, huh. I wonder what the fuck the description is. Can't say we fight disgusting things of the night, so it's probably something dumb like crocheting. We make beaded accessories, we specialize in friendship bracelets, and we also make sugar cookies on the side. Or we used to until Fuuka came along. (She burnt down half our house.)

"A Shadow feeds on the mind of its prey; the victim becomes a living corpse," Mitsuru says, snapping me out of my daze. "They're the ones responsible for most of the incidents on the news, if not all of them."

I guess she expects me to already know about the Apathy Syndrome, or maybe in the game people talk about it, but whatever. I rub the back of my neck, feeling insecure. "How are we supposed to fight them? I know that night I had a gun or something, and there was this thing that showed up… But it's really all just a blur."

The Chairman nods his head. "Although rare, there are those who can function during the Dark Hour. Some may even awaken to a power that enables them to fight the Shadows. That's 'Persona'—the power you used the other night," I wonder if he knows about Igor. Probably not. They should get together and cackle and talk about Persona. "The Shadows can only be defeated by Persona-users. Which means, it's all up to you guys."

"Is that really safe?" I ask, not wanting to sound like a little dick, but wanting answers the game never gave me. "We're just teenagers… Are we really the best option?"

Mitsuru starts to speak and when I look her way, we make really dense eye contact. "There is no other option."

She pulls out a silver case from beneath the coffee table in-between us all and sets it on top. She clicks it open, the noises she makes the loudest thing in the room right now, and when she spins it around to show me what's inside, I'm staring at a polished silver gun.

"What we're trying to say is, we want you to join us. We've prepared an Evoker for you. We'd like you to lend us your strength."

I wonder what would happen if I just stood up and said 'NOPE' and then boogied out the room, but that is certainly not an option. I'm pretty sure the game only offered a few different variations of 'okay' to try and hammer it in that there is no escape. Inception music plays. I look around the room a few times, then settle my sights on the Evoker. "Alright, then."

Next to me, Yukari lets out an audible sigh, and I could feel the tension in the room dilute some. I hadn't even noticed how high-strung everything had gotten. "I was so afraid you'd say no…Welcome aboard, Celia!" She rests her hand on my forearm, squeezing it a little. I feel my face flush.

"Thank you so much, I'm really very glad," the Chairman says, chuckling. "Oh, I almost forgot! About your room assignment… Well, why don't you just stay here, in your current room? I don't know what the hold-up is, but I guess it worked out in the end."

Yukari is visibly confused, and I want to stand up and tell them that I know all their secrets and they should stop hiding them from me now, but that's just a dumb idea. Igor might pop out of nowhere and smack the back of my head for breaking the rules. It's just frustrating.

There's a little clicking noise in the back of my head, a sound similar to a watch tick, and I feel goosebumps run down my arms. This is probably something from the game not knowing how to translate itself to the real world… What is it? Oh, right, Social Links. In the game there was a set number to see how close people were to you, but that's not exactly the case in real life.

I close my eyes for a second, thinking wildly I might see the screen from the game, something familiar, but that's not what I get. It's just black, and I feel like a dumbass.

Right as I open my eyes, I see a flash of the Fool tarot card, and the goosebumps come back.

* * *

That night, I lie in bed wide awake, staring at my ceiling. I'm waiting for the Dark Hour to come, and I want to see the shift come. Also I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to meet Pharos again, but I don't know if it's tonight or tomorrow or what.

My watch clicks to midnight, and that heavy feeling comes back. I sit up to look out the window and, yup, there's the moon, terrifyingly huge and bathed in green. My watch itself stops working, the seconds stuck at 00, and when I try to click my iPod on, it refuses to respond.

As I'm experimenting, I feel a pair of eyes on my back, and I whip around to see Pharos' inscrutable grin.

"Hi, how are you?" he asks calmly.

I look back at him. "Fine, thanks."

"Oh, so you remember me?" he says, his smile growing both wider and noticeably happier. That's right, Pharos just wanted to be friends with me. I guess it's good that I'm friendly with him, then. Maybe we can buddy it up and I can spike his drink next time and get him to spill the deets. "I remembered something, and I thought I should tell you. Soon, the end will come."

Hearing those words sends chills down my spine. "Thanks? For telling me. I think."

He leans back, face growing softer and even harder to read. "I wasn't expecting you to thank me. But… You're welcome." A pause. "That… Is what I'm supposed to say, right?"

"It's usually what people say, yeah," I mutter, turning around so we could face each other head n. He's sitting on the side of my bed, his legs dangling off the edge, his butt ON MY FUCKING PILLOW. I sit cross-legged across him, my blanket wrapped around my waist.

"Oh, good," he laughs, sounding amazingly childish. There's some silence, like always, and then he starts speaking again. "I… don't really know what this 'end' is about, either. But, it does seem like you've awakened to your power… And what an unusual power it is. A power that takes many forms, yet is bound by none… It may prove to be your salvation, depending on where you end up."

I wonder how switching Personas is gonna work out. Orpheus just kinda…came. But I guess, that was my first time using that power, so maybe with more practice, I'll be able to call upon more things?

"Do you remember when we first met?" he asks, tilting his head.

"You made me sign a contract."

"I did. And I expect you to honour your commitment."

He gets up off my bed now, and I snatch my pillow away, flipping it over so I don't sleep on creepy-kid butt germs. "I'll be watching you, even if you forget about me," he says, a touch of some disheartening emotion in those words. "See you later."

And, just as creepily as he was the first time around, he steps back and fades into the dark. It's only when the Dark Hour ends that I decide to get back to sleep.


	6. A New Dormmate, Yeah

(_here's the new chapter! thank you once again to everyone leaving reviews-they really mean a whole fuckin lot! i daisuki all of you_.)

* * *

The next day at school, I am one hot commodity. It starts before I even get on campus, with classmates coming up to me and Yukari and exclaiming things. Mostly those fake-worried "OH MAN WHAT HAPPENED YOU DISAPPEARED IS EVERYTHING OKAY" kind of things, but also the tilted questions aimed to figure out if I had some sort of terrible sexually transmitted disease that made me not able or allowed to come to school. Yukari acted as my bodyguard and told everyone I was just ill for a while and now I'm fine, but not fine enough to handle all this excitement, and we also have to get to class, so if you'll just excuse us. In the classroom there was more of a crowd, but Ms Toriumi comes in and saves me by coughing very loudly and everyone scatters to their seat. I notice my seat is being filled by a pimply guy, so I wander over to Ms Toriumi and ask what I should do.

"Oh, that's right, you weren't here for the new seat assignments," she looks over the class and points to the seat open next to Junpei, who seems to be asleep. "Well, you can just sit right there."

The girl on the other side of the seat raises her hand. "Ms Toriumi, it's not open, he's just absent."

"Well, if the seat is open, it's open, and it's Arisato-san's now. When he decides to come back, I'll find him a new seat."

I take my new seat and introduce myself to my new neighbour, Sugimura Kaiyo, a girl with a messy bun and large lips, and then settle into my seat, taking out the one notebook I own. Junpei wakes up after a scolding, the class has a laugh, and then our school day begins.

At lunch time, Yukari comes over to me before Junpei has time to open his mouth. "It sucks we can't sit near each other," she says, sounding genuinely disappointed. "Maybe next semester. I'm sorry you have to sit next to Stupei."

I start laughing, the dumbass nickname taking me off-guard. "Oh my god, Stupei?"

Junpei sighs a very morose sigh from beside me, lamenting his struggles as Junpei Iori, high school student. "It's her nickname for me. I don't know what I ever did to deserve it."

"You were born," Yukari huffs, crossing her arms very angrily. "Butt out of the conversation, alright? Anyway, Celia, I'm gonna go now, but don't you forget to eat, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," I tell her, and she walks away, still huffy. Junpei seems very down in the dumps next to me. "What's your problem? And why weren't you one of the concerned members of Class 2-F?"

He sits up, knitting his eyebrows and smiling apologetically. "Sorry, Celia-tan. There were just already so many people around you, I figured it wouldn't mean as much if I went then than if I went later, y'know? Like, I don't see anyone else asking you how you are right now! I'm actually being a better friend than everyone else, got it?"

I roll my eyes. "You're only asking me now because of forced proximity, but, yeah, sure, you're a great friend."

"Enough about me and how wonderful I am. What's up with you? Yuka-tan refused to answer any questions about your absence, even though she was also gone the first day you were out."

She was? That wasn't ever mentioned in the game, I don't think. But man, that would make sense. After that massive Shadow attack, I'm surprised if anyone managed to make it to school the next day. Who knows how late they all had to stay up to get me to the hospital. Aw, man, I'm feeling guilty again. It's not like I could help it! Blame Igor, everything is all his fault!

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah, I… Collapsed, I guess. I had to be hospitalized. It happened pretty late at night, so Yukari must've stayed up really late with our senpais, taking me to the hospital," As I speak I remember a Japanese grammar rule from many years ago where the plural of senpai should actually be senpai-tachi, but Junpei's face doesn't change at all, so I guess senpais works. "But I'm fine now. Just have to sleep and eat better."

He eyes my desk. "If you have to eat better, why don't you have any food?"

"Because I'm broke?"

In a rush, he stands up. "Now, that won't do at all! Stay here, Celia-tan."

"Oh my god, Junpei, don't buy me food," I plead, grabbing his shirt tail. "Don't waste your money, that is not a thing you have to do for me. I'll be fine."

He tuts, very obviously in his good guy mode, and absolutely refusing to listen to me. "I shall spend my money however I choose, and I choose to purchase baked goods for a lovely lady!"

I groan and let go of his shirt, and when he comes back five minutes later, he has his arms filled with packaged bread.

* * *

I spent what we had left of lunch eating most of the bread—melon bread is not as good as I hoped it was, but dang was takoyaki bread amazing—and also the rest of the class day munching on a curry bread, and when classes end, Junpei takes a bow as I thank him profusely (with a voice drenched in sarcasm) for his noble deed. Yukari comes up just as he's about to strike a pose on his desk.

"What's going on?" she asks, sounding disgusted. "Is he bugging you again?"

"He bought me food so I have to pretend he's my knight in shining armour for the rest of the day," I tell her, and Junpei looks like he's about to break out with a new dance number.

"You should get a part-time job at the mall," Yukari says, leaning against my desk with her back to Junpei. "They're not too difficult, and the pay's actually pretty good! I have a friend working at the café, and she says they even give her free tea on breaks."

"I'll look into it," I say, and right as my sentence ends, all of the attention in the room is diverted to the door, open and wooden and framing a very lovely upperclassman.

Mitsuru-senpai (I gotta start referring to her as that in my head, lest I accidentally forget to add a –senpai vocally and cause mass embarrassment and bring shame upon my family) strides forward, her most-likely school inappropriate high heels clicking on the tile floor. When she reaches my desk, currently home to Yukari and I, she stops and places her hands on her hips. "Can I have a minute?"

"Um, yes," I say, wondering what would happen if I said no.

"Come to the fourth floor when you get back to the dorm. I have something to tell everyone. I'll save the details for later, but don't worry about rushing. See you there."

And then she spins on her heel and strides right out of the room. Mitsuru is a very stride-y lady, it seems.

Yukari is a little dumbfounded, so I awkwardly chuckle, "That was fast. She doesn't like to waste time, does she?"

My dormmate sighs. "She's probably busy with things like Student Council, unlike us," When she says the 'us' it sounds awfully angry and annoyed, but I've spent enough time around people and played this game enough to know that the anger wasn't directed to Mitsuru-senpai, but most likely to Yukari herself, instead. But, I'm looking too much into it.

Junpei is done with his self-celebration and leans over again, smiling like a jerk. "Woah, Yuka-tan! Do I sense some hostility?"

"When you call her Yuka-tan, I think of the country," I tell Junpei, but I am universally ignored.

Yukari crosses her arms, very obviously flustered. "Well, it's not that I don't like her. She's just—Wait, why am I telling you this? Never mind. C'mon, Celia, let's go."

She storms away, her arms still crossed, and I look at Junpei, my eyebrows raised and my lips pursed. "You done goofed up."

"I just can't win," Junpei sighs, once again lamenting his tragic life, but I ignore his oncoming monologue in favour of packing up my very few things and skipping over to Yukari.

She stays silent and annoyed all the way past the shoe lockers and off campus, her aura keeping me from asking any questions. I mean, I know she's not a fan of either Junpei or Mitsuru-senpai, but does she really hate them _that_ much? In the game, it came off as more of a general annoyance and displeasure, but, yeah, not really so much despise.

This sure makes this uncomfortable for me—I mean, I'm sure in the PS2 version they had something with flipped tarot cards and broken Social Links based off of being a jerk to your friends, but the PSP version never really addressed consequences from assholeishness. (If it did, I never experienced it, ha, I am such a wonderful fictional friend.) If I want to stay friends with Yukari, I can't be friends with Junpei, or at least I have to be secret friends.

Uhg, this is so complicated. Relationships are so complicated. This is why I played video games in the first place.

We take a little detour through the Port Island strip mall place to get some doughnuts from the sweets shop the game never let you enter (it is so cute and so yummy I am going there every day from now on), and as we climb down the spiral metal staircase, munching on the fried sweets, Yukari speaks to me again.

"A-about earlier…"

She's quiet again until we both reach the bottom and she turns to face me, but she doesn't look at me. "It's not that I don't like her or anything, y'know?"

"Mitsuru-senpai?" I ask, just making sure. This doughnut is so freaking good, oh my god.

Yukari nodded. "I think it's just—our personalities don't match? Y'know? I'm just not really good with her kind… She's just so self-sufficient and she never needs anyone else, and she's always so flippant and standoffish, and…"

I wave my hand in the air to stop her. "It's okay, man. I understand. You don't need to explain yourself."

She nodded, and then pouted, huffy again. "Man, why's Junpei always have to talk about stuff that isn't any of his business, anyway? Plus, he always says everything in, like, the creepiest, most perverted way. He's the poster boy for sexual harassment."

"I dunno if he's _that_ bad, but he is pretty perverted," I allow, cautious. Junpei never seemed too degenerate to me, but I guess it might be because I'm just really used to his kind. And, uh, I'm probably worse than him. But, yeah, the creepy macking on girls thing is pretty discomfiting.

"That's because you haven't lived with him for years," Yukari scowls, and we're on our way to the station. "You know, last year he flipped this girl's skirt?"

I gawk. "No way."

"Yes, way! It was at the school festival, and he and a bunch of his buddies ran up to her and just flipped it! What a huge jerk!"

And I'd include the rest of the conversation, but we quickly got derailed by a stray cat running across our path, and then, yeah. Junpei apparently got quite the scolding and he and his buddies had to write a letter of apology to both the girl and the school. He does drop about twenty places on my list of friends, but it's nice to have Yukari talking again.

* * *

When we get back to the dorm, it's maybe an hour later than we normally get back, mostly because doughnuts, also because cats and I almost fell into traffic. Well, the latter didn't really make us late, but Yukari now forbids me from trying to make it across the street before the walk sign turns red. I'm clumsy.

We sign in, and notice that Mitsuru-senpai and Akihiko-senpai are both already here, which brings up curious looks from both of us to both of us. I ask her if we should just head on up there, and she shrugs, unsure.

"I guess? She said we didn't have to rush, but if both of them are already here…"

"Let's just drop off our things and head up."

When we meet at the imposing fourth floor command room door, I knock tentatively, and Mitsuru-senpai opens the door almost immediately afterwards.

"Welcome back," she smiles, a warm contrast to her appearance at school. She steps out of the way for us to walk in, and Akihiko-senpai is sitting in the same place he was the last time we all had a big serious talk up here. The Chairman is also here, sitting in his seat, sipping something from a mug.

Wait… What's going on? I forgot about this. Jeez, it hasn't even been the long, how have I managed to already forget. Um, so, first was the joining SEES, and then… Oh! That's right, this is when Junpei is going to join the ranks. Poor Yukari. I might have to go check up on her every now and again to make sure she hasn't hung herself from her ceiling fan.

Akihiko-senpai notices us and smiles as well. Dang, everyone is smiley. Dang, he's hot. "We were waiting for you. There's someone I wanna introduce. C'mon, sit down."

Yukari looks around. "Huh?"

I hold in a laugh, walking over to the sofa.

Akihiko-senpai steps out of the room, yells something down the hall, and I watch as Yukari visibly pales. I'm pretty sure she knows by now, and is maybe clinging onto her last string of hope/denial, and I'm just trying to not laugh. Where's the jaunty background music, let's get some electro jazz up in here, or whatever the fuck Persona 3's music style was. It was rad, whatever it was.

The door creaks open, and Akihiko-senpai laughs as a Junpei Iori stumbles in, carrying multiple backpacks. He sees me and Yukari, waves, and says, "Wassup?"

Yukari flies up, her face flashing red. "J-Junpei!? Why are YOU here!?"

Akihiko-senpai holds out a hand as way of introduction, waving it between us and Junpei. "I guess you might know who this is already, but… This is Junpei Iori from Class 2-F. He'll be staying here as of today."

"He's staying HERE!? You've gotta be kidding me!"

(I've given up on not laughing and now I'm laughing a lot.)

"Isn't there somewhere else he can stay? Why HERE? With US?"

Akihiko-senpai spares a chuckle. "I bumped into him the other night. He has the potential, but he just awakened to it recently… I told him about us, and, well, he agreed to help."

Yukari's jaw goes slack. "You have the potential!? For real!?"

Junpei speaks as I wonder why he got a one-on-one talk with Akihiko-senpai and I had to get pressured by the entire SEES team. I'd kill for a one-on-one talk with Akihiko-senpai, man. Actually kill. Don't get too close to me, I'm ready and willing to aim for your jugular. I'm so lonely.

"Yeah, he found me cryin' like a baby at the convenience store, surrounded by a bunch of coffins. I don't remember much, but… Man, that's embarrassing! He said that's, y'know, completely normal in the beginning, all the being confused and not remembering stuff. You guys knew that, right?"

"I was alright. Well, I mean, I was in a coma for over a week, but, yeah, no, I was cool," I say simply, but I don't know if I'm on mute or what, because I'm just ignored again.

Junpei grins at Yukari, and I touch my face to see if I'm even here. "Heyyy, don't feel bad! It happens to all us Persona-users."

Yukari flails her hands around, starting to look at other people in the room for backup.

"But, man, I was shocked to find out about you guys. I had no idea, about any of this. I'm glad I'm not the only one, though, it could've gotten pretty lonely. I bet you're stoked too, right? Having me join, being one of you. I bet it's nice to have a guy around too, wouldn't it?"

"Akihiko-senpai is also a guy," I point out, and I refrain from mentioning how he's both hotter and more eligible to date. Since, y'know, Junpei had that thing with that pastel goth lolita girl. Oh, god, Akihiko-senpai's lover route, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? Let's not think about this now, Celia, you've got stuff going on in front of you. Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about how it fades to black, STOP IT.

Yukari has now lowered her arms and looks a little less disgusted and a little more absolutely defeated and drowning in despair.

"So, anyway, I'm glad to join the team."

I cough out a discreet 'fuck' and then stand up to meet Junpei's outstretched hand. "Don't fuck it up," I tell him, smiling as nicely as I could, and Junpei laughs.

Akihiko-senpai is apparently done with this and he sits down on the loveseat next to Misturu-senpai, who is fiddling with something that looks like a cell phone in her hand. Y'know, I knew there must've been some sort of wide-spread cell phone/laptop proficiency in the Persona 3 world, especially since the guy version lets you play this MMORPG thing, but I never really assumed anyone actually used them. Mitsuru-senpai puts away her cell phone that looks rather Blackberry-ish when Akihiko-senpai hits the couch, and gets down to business.

"Enough with the introductions," she says, neither kind nor unkind, just very matter-of-fact. "I think we're about ready. Chairman?"

The Chairman finally perks up, apparently having just watched us the entire time. Yukari plops down next to me, on my right side, with Junpei getting comfy on my left. I'm stuck in the centre of a hate sandwich and my happy mood plummets into a very uncomfortable one. Why can't these two losers get along? I swear, I will turn this car around. Play nice.

"Well," the Chairman starts, clasping his hands together. "Now that everyone's here, I'd like your undivided attention. For a long time, Mitsuru and Akihiko were the only Persona-users we had." I think of Shinji, but don't let him know I'm mentally correcting him. "But, now, that number has recently jumped to five. Therefore, starting tonight at midnight, I'd like to commence the exploration of Tartarus."

I do a mental tap dance number in victory for having reaching this far, but Junpei is busy being dumb next to me. "Tartarus…? What's that? Sounds like toothpaste."

"You haven't seen it, Junpei?" Yukari asks, leaning forward and tilting her head to side to stare at Junpei in incredulity. Well, sorry Yukari, not all of us have been trapezing around the town during the Dark Hour for long enough to see the monster of a building GEKKOUKAN HIGH SCHOOL turns into.

"It's no surprise," the Chairman says when Junpei just shrugs. "since it only appears during the Dark Hour."

Junpei nods, either faking it or actually understanding this. "And, the Dark Hour is when everything gets all green and weird, right?"

Akihiko-senpai nods. "Tartarus shows up during the Dark Hour, just like the Shadows… Interesting, huh? And, it's the perfect place for us to train. You can think of it as a Shadow nest."

I shudder. Uhg, a tall building filled with those disgusting black things, uhg, uhg, uhg. Junpei's eyes are filled with boyish wonder, our very own Pinocchio. I have half a mind to make him wear shorts and sing a joyful tune. "Their nest? Woah…"

Yukari asks the question Akihiko-senpai was dreading and Mitsuru-senpai was probably going to bring up anyway. "But, senpai… What about your injury? Will you be joining us?"

Mitsuru-senpai sits up, straightening her back and re-crossing her legs. "Since Akihiko hasn't yet fully recovered, he'll only be coming as far as the entrance."

Our poor injured senpai beside her sinks in his seat like a kid who was just banned from video games for a week. Or a teenage boy who was just banned from Shadow fighting for… a while. "_Yeah_, I _know_, you don't have to remind me."

Junpei grins, his confidence so overpowering I could smell it. "Relax, senpai, I've got their backs."

Yukari moans. "I'm not so sure about this…"

"I dunno, kinda sounds fun," I say, and Mitsuru-senpai shoots me a glare. Apparently, Shadow fighting and fun are not synonyms in her book. And here I thought she was just worried about her dear childhood friend, Akihiko-chan.

"What about you, Mr. Chairman?" Mitsuru-senpai asks. Wait, hold on, shouldn't that have been Chairman-san? I'm so confused by all these honorifics and translations, goddamn. I'm gonna make Igor write me a chart.

"I'll be staying here," he says, something more in his smile. "As you'll know, I can't summon a Persona…"

Junpei looks at me. "So, wait, people can be awake during the Dark Hour, but they don't have to have a Persona?"

"They're not mutually inclusive," I tell him. "Like, you have to be awake during the Dark Hour to have a Persona, but not vice-versa."

Mitsuru-senpai stands up. "It's almost six now—everyone, go back to your rooms and get ready. We'll be leaving at eleven pm. Rest up until then, we'll be spending quite some time out."

Junpei nods, Yukari sighs, obviously uncomfortable with this, and I salute her.

* * *

Later on that night, I wander over to Yukari's room, an actual legitimate question waiting for her opinion. Junpei and Akihiko-senpai had moved all of the former's junk into a room one floor below us and I liked to make things annoying for them by stomping on the floor a bit to confuse and frustrate them, but when Mitsuru-senpai asked me in a very cold voice to kindly _stop_, I did. Anyway, Yukari's room.

She opens the door, still wearing the sweater she wore to school, but the uniform pleated skirt has been switched out with some cotton shorts. "Yes?"

"Uh," I start, blanking out. "Um, uh… What should we wear to Tartarus?"

Yukari looks away, a little sheepish. "I… Don't know. I've never been inside… I've just seen it from afar."

"Like, I don't have battle armour, or any sports safety things. What if we get beat up, like Akihiko-senpai? I'm too frail and fragile for these kind of injuries."

She rolls her eyes at me, but steps out from her room and closes the door behind her. "Maybe we should ask Mitsuru-senpai. She's been inside before, I think."

"You _think_?"

"W-well, I don't know! Akihiko-senpai and the Chairman know a lot about it, so I assumed they had all went inside at some point…"

I rub the back of my neck. Back when it was Akihiko-senpai, Shinji, and Mitsuru-senpai, I wonder how they went about Shadow fighting. They didn't have those large monthly battles, but they must've been to Tartarus quite a bit, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense when they join the team, that they're all, like, level 25 and I never levelled up enough and was always really low down. (I'm not much of a grinder.)

We shuffle over to Mitsuru-senpai's room, and Yukari pushes me in front of her to knock on the door. Gingerly, I rap my knuckles against the door and wait for some sign of life.

Mitsuru-senpai opens the door, her tumbling red curls pulled back into a ponytail, but still in her school uniform, skirt and poofy shirt and all. "Yes? What is it?"

"Uh," I say, my head fading into white noise. From behind me, Yukari decides to step up.

"Senpai, we were wondering… What should we wear to Tartarus?"

A pause. "Anything you'd like. Something comfortable and easy to move around in."

"But, um, like," I start, shoving my hands into my pajama pants pockets. "Akihiko-senpai got really beat up, and, uh, I'd like to not get as beat up? I think I've had my fill of hospitalisations for this month."

Mitsuru-senpai stops, raising a manicured hand to her mouth, thinking intently. I shift my weight from one leg to the other, waiting, and Yukari stands completely motionless, also very awkward. In the game, everyone just fought in their school uniforms, but we did everything in our school uniforms, so.

After a very long moment, Mitsuru-senpai sighs. "Come in."

Her room is immaculate and very soft-scented, not at all as highly luxurious as I had expected. I don't even remember what it looks like in the game, but it's very neat, clean, and it actually feels a bit lonely. Mitsuru-senpai motions for us to sit on the floor next to a small coffee table in the middle of the room, and she digs into her very organized and shelved closet for something.

"Before you all came, Akihiko and I would visit Tartarus for training. After a bad injury early on, the Chairman commissioned a couple of things for us so we weren't extremely reliant on solely our Persona powers."

"Did you guys get weapons?" I ask, wondering if that sounded too much like an RPG-type question.

"Eventually, yes, we received formal weapons designed for Shadow elimination, but before that, we received specially made clothes."

She turns around, a shabby cardboard box in her arms, and she sets it down on the table in front of us. I peek inside, curiosity bursting out of my seams, and she opens it up to reveal… School uniforms.

I look up at her, and her cheeks are a bit pink. "I'm sorry, they're a bit big… But, if you're looking for protective clothes, these are all I have to offer. I'll contact the Chairman to see if we can order clothes to your specific body types."

I stand up, absolutely amazed. The game really skipped over this kind of stuff, man, dang. I hadn't ever even thought about this before asking Yukari—I just thought we could make an agreement on wearing school uniforms, not go to Mitsuru-senpai's room and get decked out. I can't believe I'm gonna wear Miss Beauty Queen Extraordinaire's old fighting clothes. Oh, man. I'm so blogging about this.

I grab a jacket and skirt and hold it up to my body. It's the standard uniform, not the fancy one she's wearing now, and it looks like everything fits somewhat… I'll have to belt or something the belt and roll up the sleeves, and oh my god Mitsuru-senpai literally has a perfect body.

"Thank you so much, senpai," Yukari says, still seated. "I promise we'll return them in perfect condition."

Mitsuru-senpai has this faint look of a smile on her face, and her words come out a little too cool. "That's not a problem. They were made to be used."

When we leave, we both have a pair of clothes in our hands—skirt, shirt, jacket, all of them made out of this slightly thicker, slightly more grainier fabric than the actual uniform—and we bow very low at the door. Mitsuru-senpai is still looking, acting, and sounding weird when she tells us not to worry, and if I didn't know any better, I could even say I heard a little bit of optimism seeping into her voice.


End file.
